The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the discussion was: Keep and Blank . This was a lengthy discussion with input from many editors. At least half of the editors would like the page to be deleted, while a substantial fraction prefer to keep it. In the middle there are those who would keep the page blanked as it is now. What is clear is that the humor page was not very funny, and it offended many editors. This was not an appropriate page for the Signpost, because the page generated bad will between editors. Moreover, some topics are not appropriate for humor in the context of a professional work environment, even an online one. The issue of how to deal with pronouns on Wikipedia could be discussed seriously and thoughtfully. This page did not do that. Jehochman ^Talk 15:20, 7 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

The essay by SMcCandlish ( talk · contribs) and Barbara (WVS) ( talk · contribs) is a misuse of Wikipedia pages under WP:POLEMIC and by targeting minority gender identity fails to meet the requirements of WP:Harassment, WMF:Non-discrimination_policy and the websites WMF:Terms of Use, as it attacks and defames minority groups. The article is written as a joke, but it clearly intended to marginalizes and disparages transgender, nonbinary or genderqueer readers and Wikipedians.

Wikipedia essays and the Signpost are not free speech forums to publish what to most readers will be deliberately transphobic rhetoric, even if those words are wrapped in a "joke" format. -- Fæ ( talk) 14:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Addendum: Recommend this discussion applies automatically to the userspace essay discussed at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:SMcCandlish/It -- Fæ ( talk) 17:27, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Addendum: Due to Barbara (WVS) having a sexuality related topic ban, they may be unable to comment here as the Signpost essay itself (may or may not fall under) the TBAN for which their account has been blocked unblocked. Refer to WP:ANI#Violation_of_topic_ban_by_Barbara_(WVS). (Updated, again) -- Fæ ( talk) 19:03, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Addendum: Removed the word "intended", there was an intent to publish which has been stated by the parties as an error in judgment, but the wording of the nomination was not clear enough to distinguish between how the article can be read while making no presumption about any motivation other than the choice to write the essay as a joke and publish it. -- Fæ ( talk) 16:34, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Survey

• I don't know if it warrants deletion but I would like to see a strong public response along these lines. We can and should discuss this sensitive issue without venom and rancor; this op-ed doesn't do that. ElKevbo ( talk) 15:13, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• ( edit conflict) I'm not sure if deletion would be appropriate. It did manage to get into the Signpost, a publication just about important enough to have its own Wikipedia article, so it does have some additional importance that the usual oddly genderqueer-phobic/transphobic essay wouldn't have. On the other hand, it is also not very tasteful and nowhere near funny enough to deserve thousands of Signpost readers' time, and if it gets deleted it can be viewed from a safe distance inside the Internet Archive. Jc86035 ( talk) 15:19, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  As a thought experiment, if someone were to write a similar jolly funny article which derided and marginalized, say Jewish religious customs by making fun of the way they dress, or poked fun at African-Americans because their ancestors might have been slaves to white people, do you really think that the Wikipedians that were using this project's resources to publish it, would not be instantly blocked, and probably end up globally banned? Exactly why are LGBT+ people any different, or deserve less respect and dignity? -- Fæ ( talk) 15:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ Fæ: I really don't know. It was run past several other editors before its publication. Would it be considered revisionist to pretend its publication never happened? (The article's talk page would also probably be deleted under this nomination without further clarification, because of CSD G8.) Jc86035 ( talk) 15:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  There is a clear next step, hopefully unnecessary, of asking WMF Legal to intervene. Though they will resist appearing to change encyclopedic content or legitimate discussion, an "humorous" essay which attacks a protected minority group, does have specific legal implications as well as being counter to existing WMF operational policy. No doubt this was missed in prior discussion before publication. -- Fæ ( talk) 15:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Are you seriously invoking Wikipedia:No legal threats or did you mean to suggest that this situation is some kind of exception to it? – Athaenara ✉ 17:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: Asking WMF Legal to look at a Signpost article as being in breach of WMF policy, is not a legal threat by anyone's logical interpretation. Nobody is asking the WMF to start a civil action, neither would they be interested if someone tried. By the way, in light of your other comment about me here, if you raise another question for me, I'll be calling you a Crybully; seems fair. -- Fæ ( talk) 17:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Can you clarify what "specific legal implications" would need to be brought to the attention of WMF Legal? —DIYeditor ( talk) 22:43, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: It's unnecessary, so no, hypotheticals and wiki lawyering is pointless. If it gives anyone comfort, WMF employees are following this discussion, possibly due to interest in how improved community policies can be seen to be working or not, but the default and best position is always to give our volunteer community every opportunity to govern itself and the WMF are not our police, we are. -- Fæ ( talk) 22:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Just to be absolutely crystal clear so you don't do this in the future, Wikipedia is a US-based project and there are no limitations on criticizing protected classes in any way in the US. In fact that is absolutely contrary to US law and to the principles of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not censored. —DIYeditor ( talk) 02:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

If you scroll down a bit from WP:NOTCENSORED, you'll also find WP:NOTFREESPEECH. Wikipedia "restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia". -- Ahecht ( TALK
PAGE) 03:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Of course we as the Wikipedia community should restrict things that abuse other members and this is a clear example. Do not insult other editors! My concern was specifically the legal threat which is totally empty. —DIYeditor ( talk) 03:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It seems to me you're considering yourself exempt from standard Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I can't approve of that. – Athaenara ✉ 17:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: No, I'm not exempt from anything, neither are crybullies. If you write anything else, could it be about the nomination? You can write about me on my talk page, if you wish. -- Fæ ( talk) 17:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

It's possibly not technically a legal threat, but "does have specific legal implications" is obviously meant to feel like one. It's not Fæ threatening direct legal action, but telling us that they're actively trying to get WMF to take legal action (which of course is nonsensical, since nothing illegal or unlawful has transpired). This is an example of what WP:SANCTIONGAMING was written about: trying to "get away with it" on a technicality. We have WP:NLT not because laws and courts and attorneys are an evil, but because clubbing people over the head with legalistic FUD and WP:DRAMA is inimical to an open and good-faith-assumptive editorial community.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:20, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Couldn't be more plain that does have specific legal implications combined with asking WMF Legal to intervene is a legal threat. "Asking WMF legal to intervene" sounds a lot like "warning WMF legal that WMF is breaking the law". Why else would "WMF legal" be relevant unless Wikipedia is alleged to be breaking the law? The statement should be amended or retracted, or brought to ANI same as any other legal threat. —DIYeditor ( talk) 21:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree, but am not interested in pursuing that (or the canvassing, or the harassment across three WMF sites so far). It's not worth the drama. I'm not offended that people have different sensitivity levels, even to the point of believing that humor cannot possible come anywhere near some subjects for any reason. Reasonable people can disagree, though this is edging toward not-reasonable. That said, I'm pretty sure I've seen something like this (i.e., politicized targeting of an editor with WP:ASPERSIONS of X-phobia) from Fæ before, and suspect that this may be habitual. I don't have the diffs or time to examine it for a pattern, though, and am averse to such diff-digging anyway.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: Try sticking to the nomination. If you want to haphazardly take a poke because I was the one to create this page, you know where my talk page is. You can see that an Arbcom member has commented here, so you could always approach them for advice on how to request a transgender related case, rather than using this MfD to make pointless personal attacks, I'm sure they will be interested. Given that your unfunny "joke" has been objected to by multiple well established and respected self identified trans and queer contributors, there is plenty of good advice written here that you appear to be unable to take on board. Thanks -- Fæ ( talk) 22:28, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

"Be careful what you wish for." Here's at least some of what I was thinking of: Fæ was indefinitely banned in 2012 for sexuality-related battlegrounding, most pertinently "ad hominem attacks to try to discredit others" (e.g., trying to label people "transphobic"). This was softened into a topic ban from "sexuality, broadly construed" (including gender identity matters) from 2012 to mid-2017 (suspended from Dec. 2016). If DIYeditor's ANI suggestion were followed through, a reinstatement of that topic ban would be the likely outcome, especially since the original case also involved canvassing of the same sort, and Fæ was at WP:RFARB again only a couple of weeks ago, also for canvassing in support of gender-related battlegrounding, though ArbCom remanded the matter back to the community for further discussion and examination. That may be overdue.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:16, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: Resurrecting a case from over 7 years ago as evidence of, something, maybe nothing? Again, you know where my talk page is if you want to keep on making personal attacks and throwing mud. This MfD is about the nomination and the article you co-wrote with Barbara Page, not about me, me, me, the nominator. -- Fæ ( talk) 12:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It's not a case from over 7 years ago. It started that long ago, but it concluded – and only provisionally – in mid-2017. Given that the behavior you were banned for has not stopped or even changed, it's extremely pertinent. The ban was lifted with a clear understanding that the activities that resulted in it would not recur. So, I would surmise that you have very little time left to right your ship. If you continue in this vein, someone less averse to drama than me will certainly ANI or AE or RFARB you in your next "week of outburst" or the one after it, using all the evidence of the aspersions, canvassing, legal threats, etc. from this instance too (and all three of those were aspects of your original ban, so a re-ban is a dead certainty). PS: I have no idea why you keep putting "Tangent:" in front of things. You must have noticed by now that this isn't a wiki-talk norm and no one else is picking up your lead, so it will not become one.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:18, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: Attacking the nominator, rather than addressing the nomination is a tangent. You know exactly what you are doing. -- Fæ ( talk) 13:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You've attacked SMcCandlish across several pages now with deeply personal and hurtful aspersions. You need to stop. Mr Ernie ( talk) 13:34, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

And it's just another hand-wave. I've addressed the nomination in more wording than most people would like; the nominator's behavior isn't the nomination, and is obviously against our behavioral policies. Pointing that out is not "attacking the nominator" it's observing policy violations. They're entirely severable matters.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:35, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Don't know if you meant to, but you raise an interesting point about capitalizing "it". Re. your second sentence: How does one know if the "It" at the beginning pertains to the personal pronoun or the regular "it"? Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  15:26, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

One would perhaps boldface? Heh.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:20, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

This discussion is for the deletion of the defamatory essay. If you want to chat about the best grammatical use of personal pronouns, try WT:MOS rather than creating tangents. If you are making jokes about personal pronouns, do it off-wiki, it's not constructive here. -- Fæ ( talk) 15:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Or else Fæ may follow you, too, from site to site and try to gin up a pogrom against you. LOL.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Tangent: With the excuse that I have asked the WMF to reconsider your suitability to be recognized and trusted as a WMF Technical Ambassador because of your published transphobic "jokes", you now compare your self-victimhood to the historic massacre of Russian Jews. Your use of "LOL" seems inappropriate when you are digging a deeper hole for yourself by being ever more offensive to even more people who might read this. Please keep in mind you are not using an anonymous account, what you are writing is literally stupid. -- Fæ ( talk) 20:28, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Or perhaps you're just unaware that words in English have multiple meanings, and their senses shift over time (e.g. wikt:draconian, etc.). I don't buy this act for a minute though; no fluent English speaker can actually be ignorant of this. You're simply "high on outrage" and trying to WP:WIN at all costs. These kinds of ad hominem outbursts are precisely why you've been topic-banned from all gender and sexuality material for much of your editing history here. I predict that the ban will reinstated soon unless your approach changes. You may find this page helpful.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:16, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete (see below) Specifically because it is in the Signpost, ostensibly the official publication of enwiki, and deleting it would remove any implicit endorsement of its contents by enwiki. Galobtter ( pingó mió) 15:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • The Signpost has no offical standing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:30, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Actually, keep but blanked with an apology is first choice, second is deletion. I think keep but blanked makes it clear enough that this text is problematic without hiding what is there. Galobtter ( pingó mió) 15:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment. Unless I'm reading something wrong, the essay is about biographies, while the policies linked in the nom are talking about the relationship between editors. wumbolo ^^^ 15:35, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • You do appear to be reading something wrong, POLEMIC states "Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia", i.e. a misuse of Wikipedia pages to make jokes about the respectful way to handle pronouns for nonbinary or genderqueer people. The essay opens with "SMcCandlish, hereby declares Its personal pronoun to be It", clearly this is a Wikipedia editor talking about themselves on Wikipedia, not just about BLPs or MOS in the abstract. -- Fæ ( talk) 15:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete though I don't really expect this to actually get deleted. How is this funny? The only way I can see that this could be considered "funny" is by way of pointing and laughing at non-binary/trans people. Which isn't great. I know people can be put off by nonstandard gender pronoun preferences, and that whether there's a social or moral obligation to honor those preferences is "controversial", and that there can reasonably be a *hypothetical* upper limit to the burden that one can be expected to bear due to others' preferences, but it's not a laughing matter, and jokes like this or the attack helicopter meme are in bad taste, to say the least. Writ Keeper  ⚇ ♔ 15:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Well what would you say if a user made a gender userbox for their own page that lists their gender as attack helicopter and preferred pronoun as "it"? —DIYeditor ( talk) 23:05, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete I love Barbara's work and I look forward to more of her humor but this one should be deleted. We all make mistakes on what seems funny to us without realizing that it may demean another - Ive done it myself from time to time and I have been corrected for it. Gandydancer ( talk) 15:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete the polemical parts per nom, neutral on the MOS-related stuff. wumbolo ^^^ 15:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Delete all on second thought actually. There is no opinion about the MOS here worth salvaging (unless SMcCandlish decides to rewrite it all, something I do not oppose), and the most useful part of the essay is the part where it straw mans minority gender identities as some BS to make the point that Wikipedia articles should only use he and she, because that is the only logical conclusion from the essay. However, I don't think that the essay is illegal or anything like that. Also, WMF's policies linked above and below don't apply to style guidelines. Humour may well demean people, but it shouldn't be used to promote personal viewpoints and non-arguments. Or maybe this is really a WP:CREEP essay discussing the nonexistent problem of alien pronouns on WP. That NO transgender or genderqueer editor found the essay funny is telling. wumbolo ^^^ 22:32, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Re "BS to make the point that Wikipedia articles should only use he and she, because that is the only logical conclusion from the essay" – Except it suggests nothing like that, nor have I ever done so. I'm a firm supporter of singular they. You're just making shit up.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:44, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The essay presents the argument that there is a slippery slope from "It" to a Unicode character. As a genderless pronoun, it dehumanizes those who do not wish to be referred to that way, including some who are genderqueer. The essay's structure implies that the stub box refers to the entire essay, including the first sentence. Essentially calling "It" a neo-pronoun makes less room for singular they not more. wumbolo ^^^ 08:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Already been over that, twice [1] [2]: It's completely unrelated, and the exact opposite of what you're talking about.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I thought you might say that. However, from the essay: Always capitalize It, to distinguish from other uses of the word it. Does this look like a joke to you? Sorry but this is an entirely reasonable request. Not far-fetched. And your piece mocks it. wumbolo ^^^ 13:35, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  As far as I can tell, what you're getting at is that despite the fact that TG/NB people get called "it" by haters, one of them might actually chose to go by this pronoun and ask that it be capitalized for the same reason that my fictional character, a self-declared space-god, demands it for worship purposes as a transcendental entity, and "therefore" I'm being a trans-hater. That's one of the most tortured conclusions I've ever seen anyone come to. And I already addressed this in the link already provided to you: English only has a few pronouns, so any example of anything involving them is going to coincide with someone somewhere's actual usage. It's such a vanishingly small usage among actual TG/NB people that coming to such a conclusion borders on nonsensical. It's like saying "Your example had a someone with an eye in the back of his head, and I know a TG person with unborn-twin syndrome who has an eye in the back of his head, ergo you are transphobic." So, nope, not buying it. The entire realm of pronouns is not wholly owned by TG people and (more to the point) the language-change activists who swirl around them.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Do you have reason to believe that no TG/GQ person will ask that? If not, see Appeal to tradition for why even one person should be allowed to complain. Imagine an article saying "X is an author known for its books" (where X is GQ, but did not provide English pronouns, and an editor wrote "its" for some reason), no available relevant reliable sources, and someone changing "its" to "Its" citing defamation. Would you revert? Moving on, even if a negligible number of TG/GQ people used "It", surely we wouldn't alienate them for not being in the majority. Next, notice that I did not anywhere in my comment suggest that "It" should actually be used. Finally, unless I'm getting all of this wrong, the issue is in being dismissive of one's gender by misgendering them using English pronouns, and not in disrespecting made-up pronouns. wumbolo ^^^ 14:42, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I actually already addressed most of this in the post you're responding to, and decline to get circular about this. Sorry if I misunderstood one of your previous arguments, though I don't see why you'd be arguing a hypothetical you don't actually buy into. In response to your direct question, if there's no RS indicating that the subject uses the exact string "It" (capital I) but we do have RS proving it (lower-case i), then yes, I would revert it back to it, per WP:NOR. Given the confusing nature of the construction, I would also create a footnote at first (hopefully only) occurrence explaining that the subject's preferred pronoun is "it", and otherwise write the article around this ambiguity problem, tortuous as it might be. PS: I Have no idea what you mean by your closing sentence.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:59, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• I have also nominated Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:SMcCandlish/It for deletion. Jc86035 ( talk) 15:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep - it's satire, which is best when it takes an extreme position. It reframes an argument and can inspire cooperation between opposing viewpoints by establishing some common ground. It's the reverse-psychology equivalent to a "slippery slope" argument that makes people think about where the metaphorical ledge is. Argento Surfer ( talk) 15:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  A satire of what? Of people's gender identity? If this is satire, like of over-enforcement of MOS:GENDERID or something--not that that MOS:GENDERID is necessarily a worthy target of satire either--then it's missing context, which is like the most important part of satire. There is no context for this other than "people with nonstandard pronoun preferences (i.e. non-binary or trans people)", so it's just making fun of people who are non-binary/trans. If this is satire, it's a very bad example of it. Writ Keeper  ⚇ ♔ 16:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  A satire of the way MOS:IDENTITY and WP:ABOUTSELF are enforced. The context is provided at the bottom of the article, starting with the line "All of the above..." Argento Surfer ( talk) 17:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  More specifically, it's a satire about community doubts about whether we should have IDENTITY and ABOUTSELF say what they say, instead of leaning more heavily toward what subjects prefer, all the way down to made-up words, which in turn opens the door to religious phrasing demands, to an expectation of "respecting" logo stylizations, and etc., etc. Some slippery slopes are actually slippery. Any time our guidelines and policies budge a little to make one group happy, everyone else wants their "pet" exception, too. We're just not going to make an exception for neologistic pronouns, no matter how often/loud a handful of people demand them (or, more often, try the WP:CIVILPOV tactic of quietly "slow-editwarring" them into articles like Genesis P-Orridge and various others). Our encyclopedic job is to record the subject's preference, if it's reliably sourceable; not to use it in Wikipedia's own voice.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:28, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  That's fine as an intention, I guess, but that's not what you wrote. If you were trying to satirize a) fake pronouns like zie and hirm, b) unusual trademark stylizations, and c) excessive honorifics, you should've, y'know, actually used one of those three things. (The choice of A instead of B or C still would've been pretty tasteless: the other two would've been just as effective for satire without the potential for (mis)interpretation of transphobia. But that's a different story.) But you didn't; you instead used the existing word "it". I know you said you did that deliberately, but the effect that had on the writing was to divorce your satire from "neologistic" pronouns, because "it" isn't one. Regardless of your intent, the words of the essay are more closely related to people who use the singular "they"--like "it", a pre-established pronoun that is non-standard when referring to a single human being--than it does to unusual trademark styling. That's why it's being read as transphobic: the satire of those three things is completely lost, since they're not actually used or satirized. Similarly, couching it in the language of gender-nonconformity (has come out as), strengthens the transphobic connection; it makes it sound like you're mocking the people that use that language, not the people who would write about them on Wikipedia. Moreover, for something that purports to be about Wikipedia editing, the piece doesn't actually directly talk about editing Wikipedia; it talks about the written form generally, not Wikipedia specifically, and also the spoken word, too, which has no relevance to Wikipedia. If you were trying to satirize Wikipedia editing, you should've specifically talked about Wikipedia editing. Something like an essay styled as a new MOS guideline about editing Wikipedia to conform to a hypothetical company's wacky trademark stylings, including stuff like extensive code changes to allow it in article titles or whatever, might have been an effective satire. This isn't.

  A Modest Proposal is a tired comparison, so let me give you a different one: it would be as if Pangloss, instead of being specifically a Leibnizian optimist, was a general rationalist in the style of Descartes, never using phrases like "the best of all possible worlds", yet one was still supposed to get that it's a satire of specifically Leibnizian optimism. Like, yeah, it could still work I guess, and Pangloss would still be kinda related to what Voltaire was talking about, but without being given the context of "best of all possible worlds" as juxtaposition of the suffering in the book, it's not going to read like satire of a specific philosophical position; it's gonna just read like torture porn. The context is important, and your choice not to actually use what you're satirizing means the essay misses the context to make it an effective satire. And without the satire, it just reads like a transphobic screed, because that's all that's left. I'll take you at your word that that wasn't what you meant, but that was what you wrote; it's not willful misinterpretation. Writ Keeper  ⚇ ♔ 15:33, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ Writ Keeper: Nah, that's absolutely a trap. If I had gone with your option A and used a manufactured pronoun replacement, say "zhirm", then that would be dangerously close to mocking TG/NB people for making gender identity choices that involve neo-pronouns; all the ranting on this page would actually be justifiable. What I did was radically different: I bent an existing pronoun in a way that virtually no one in the real world does, and took it to extremes that (importantly) no one would "respect" in encyclopedic writing. This makes it tie directly into stuff like the Prince symbol and Ke$ha, and over-stylization of trademarks. It retains the implication, the hint that "oh, yeah, I probably shouldn't use neo-pronouns like xie in WP's own voice", while leading the material away from LGBT+ matters. You just choose not to follow that lead and have dug in where your "look for something offensive" feels have taken you. I will concede that the "come out as" phrasing wasn't a good idea; I simply didn't think of it at the time, since the expression has wider currency in more situations now than it used to. I've since changed it in the userspace copy. Was it all too obtuse? Maybe. Was it too close to LGBT stuff for some people's comfort? Clearly. Was it too iffy for Singpost inclusion? Evidently. Was it impermissible in userspace? Absolutely not. In closing, your "you should have picked A, B, or C" lead misses the point that piece already has B and C in it, they're just not the bulk of the material. (I had too much fun imagining a space-god cult leader's increasingly nutty demands in regards to "It" and exactly how Its followers must use it, a parody of L. Ron Hubbard's language-control-freak behavior in Scientology, so that part got a little long.)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  SMcCandlish: first of all, my suggestion was to pick B or C and *not* A. Second of all, I bent an existing pronoun in a way that virtually no one in the real world does: that is *not* true. Anecdotally, I personally know one non-binary person who does use "it" as well as "they" in earnest as their personal pronouns, and I can't imagine I know the only person in existence that does that. Grammatically a bit weird, sure, but not virtually unused by any means. But more importantly, the use of "it" to refer to people in the real world is nothing new or uncommon at all, and when it's not done by personal choice, as in my friend, it's used in a nasty way, especially in the context of gender identity. As Guettarda says, in the real world, "it" is used to dehumanise trans and non-binary people. It's not confined to LGBT+ people, either; in The Handmaid's Tale individual women are referred to as "it" to objectify them, reducing them to resources. Sure, it's a fictional story, but there's a reason why that works: while "it" has no gender itself, when used unasked for, it strips the subject of gender and of their essential humanity. It is certainly used that way in the real world, too. You may have intended it innocently, and for it to be interpreted in a vacuum, but "it" isn't innocent and isn't in a vacuum. Writ Keeper  ⚇ ♔ 15:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  ABC: Okay, fine. I just must have misunderstood. Your it-using friend: I'll bet you all the tea in China they don't make up strange rules about how to use it that bear any resemblance to what I wrote. As I said in here twice already, English has very few pronouns, so any example of anything involving one, in any context, is going to coincide with some instance of a genderqueer usage by someone somewhere; but TG/NB people do not wholly own pronouns in English. We are not forbidden to use them in ways like this – so far divorced from typical and understood TG/NB usage – just because an individual in Saskatoon or where-ever may say "Hey, that's actually what I do, or kinda-sorta close to it". There is nothing that could be written, by anyone in any tone, about pronouns and their use that will not offend someone somewhere. The very fact that we treat (following good science) transgender as legitimate is already offensive to bazillions of Christian, Muslim, and other religious sorts. This isn't NeverOffendPedia. Use of "it" as a denigrator: Already been over this twice, too; it's exactly the opposite of what the piece does, and exactly the opposite of what your it/they acquaintance does, so it's just off-topic handwringing for the sake of trying to inject another objection to cover the weakness of the previous ones. Nothing anyone writes is in a vacuum, so that's an empty point.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Satire is best when it "punches up" and is used by the disadvantaged or discriminated against group to take down those who are holding them down. When it goes the other way, when it is being used by someone who lacks the disadvantage or who comes from a position of power and acceptance, when it involves "punching down", it's just cruelty. The difference is between the humor Richard Pryor and Blackface minstrel shows; to call the two equivalent because each deals with one race making fun of another is to miss the very real and very different power dynamic. In the case of this essay, it comes off as picking on a severely disadvantaged and discriminated against group; the transgender community. It minimizes the real harm being done to transgender people by those who consistently deny their own reality. Simply put: satire by the majority against those who are in the oppressed group is not funny. Because it's a tool of maintaining the oppression. Yes, you are free to do it. But freedom of speech is a two way street, and that means I am also free to call you out on your bullshit. -- Jayron 32 17:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  That's all well and good – a commonly held principle which I don't see anyone disagreeing with – but it's off-topic. This piece isn't about any oppressed minority, it's about people who will not follow neutrality and other policies and who write in not about the lingo of their subjects, just because they think the subjects will prefer it.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:32, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Perhaps we can refrain from calling opposing viewpoints "bullshit". Or perhaps not. Anyway, the word might be aptly applied to persistently misconstruing the meaning and message of the subject, thereby impugning the motives of its author without evidence. That's directly contradictory to a Wikipedia principle often forgotten when it's most important. ― Mandruss  ☎ 16:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete While I'm usually the first to argue that MOS:GENDERID is often taken too far in disregarding the pronouns used in contemporary reliable sources, this isn't the right way to advance the debate. This "humor" piece is just mean spirited and has no place on a public-facing Wikipedia page. It isn't funny, and only serves to further marginalize part of the Wikipedia community. -- Ahecht ( TALK
  PAGE) 16:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Incredibly offensive and disrespectful rant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.171.194.26 ( talk) 16:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - an inappropriate use of the Signpost and in this queer editor's opinion, in incredibly poor taste, if not a violation of the TOU. The nom also makes an excellent point about WP:POLEMIC. (And I so rarely agree with Fae, so I suppose it's working to bring opposing viewpoints together...!) Keilana ( talk) 17:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Saddened that anyone involved in this 'humour' thought it was a good idea. The very definition of punching down, when we should be putting our efforts into welcoming more contributors, not making people feel unwelcome. Sam Walton ( talk) 17:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Strong delete. Those who wrote and allowed this to be published in the Signpost should be ashamed of themselves. Making fun of a group of people who are already on the receiving end of a lot of harassment and violence both online and off does not make for a lighthearted humor piece, it makes for yet another example of how Wikipedia is not a safe place for members of those groups to participate. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:07, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete per nom. I would normally be hesitant to interfere with any publication's editorial independence, but in the community-based context of Wikipedia, I think it's appropriate for users to override such a clear error in editorial judgement, and this incident needs to be a wake-up call. - Sdkb ( talk) 17:11, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. I'm trans, I tend to go by "they". It's really fun to have WP's cis contingent aggressively mocking my identity. Sorry, did I say fun? I meant it's offensive. -- a. ^{get in the spam hole | get nosey} 17:13, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep. It's funny enough, fairly well-crafted satire, and serves as attractive bait to bring the humorless out of the shadows, hell-bent on depriving the normal average human of an opportunity to laugh. The nominator seems determined to buttonhole and pin down every editor who deems the thing worth keeping, so I suppose I'll be accosted too. Ho hum. (I guess this isn't the forum to ask why there isn't a Crybully article yet.) – Athaenara ✉ 17:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  I recall why now, it's because Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I know any of us could create a {{ Soft redirect}} to Wiktionary ("a person who engages in intimidation, harassment, or other abusive behaviour while claiming to be a victim"), but it would be provocative in the context of this raging storm, so I won't. – Athaenara ✉ 18:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Comment. Writing this as a nonbinary person who sometimes makes small edits to the projects: read the last line of this [3] if there's any doubt about the point of the essay. I will not vote, since I am apparently one of the persons targeted by the text. -- ArielGlenn ( talk) 17:18, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  The essay doesn't "target" any "persons", it criticizes failure to distinguish between a) annotating, with sources, what a subject's preferences and usage are, and b) using them as Wikipedia's own usage. So, yes, your link does sum up the point, though you seem to have inferred what you felt like inferring from it instead of what it actually says.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete per Galobtter, Sdkb and ArielGlenn's comments (as well as my comments above). Jc86035 ( talk) 17:27, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Blank or delete. If I'm being honest, I think this could have been written to be funny if it had, say, focused on stage names and WP:COMMONNAME concepts ("My stagename is 'The President of the United States'"), honorifics, or trademarks, as suggested in the nutshell. That could've been funny. That did not happen and this is not that. This is a series of cruel potshots making light of marginalized individuals, many of which are part of our community. Even using "it" as the "joke" enforces the dehumanizing impact of such a thing. This is bad and should be removed. ~ Amory ( u • t • c) 17:34, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. I would support their editorial independence if there was any evidence of editorial judgement. Gamaliel ( talk) 17:36, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Feel free to delete the Signpost thing. [Update: The talk page of it has meaningful discussion, however. Maybe some other solution is better, like removing it from the Signpost ToC? All this discussion of whether it was appropriate to include in the Signpost becomes meaningless if no one but admins would be able to examine the material.] It wasn't intended for that venue, but someone who edits it wanted to include it. I had my misgivings, predicting that various of the too-easily-offended would willfully misinterpret it, which is exactly what's happened. It wasn't transphobic in the faintest. You all utterly missed the point. It's about Wikipedia editors engaging in language-change activism trying to push non-mainstream stylistic strangeness, including a) fake pronouns like zie and hirm, b) unusual trademark stylizations, and c) excessive honorifics. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the off-site usage or the values of those who engage in it. It's about and only about encyclopedic usage. If you want to go change WP:MOS to say "It's okay to exactly mimic the appearance of logos, to write of Jesus and Mohammad with "Our Lord" and "Peace Be Upon Him" before and after (respectively) their names, to inject made-up pronoun shenanigans like ze and xir into our articles", well, good luck with that. Never going to happen.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC); updated 04:42, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  There is no debate here, your op-ed is a transphobic polemic. Your next step would have best to have been an honest apology, not to defend your actions and go on to offensively compound them by comparing nonbinary pronouns to using "Our Lord".

  That's enough, you have have nailed your colours to the mast. If you want to keep on publishing disruptive transphobic misinformation, please do it a long way away from Wikimedia projects. -- Fæ ( talk) 17:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  You just ran afoul of #11 on this list from another Signpost article today. Argento Surfer ( talk) 18:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Yeah, in Fæ's WP:HOUNDING of me from site to site, they been using the same sort of "no discussion can happen because I say so" stuff (which is remarkably similar in spirit to what I was criticizing in the essay: "You have to write it like Foo because I/we say so"). See, e.g., Meta:Talk:Tech/Ambassadors#SMcCandlish, in which they're trying make trouble for me in one of my technical roles because of their political disagreements with something they imagine I said but which isn't what I actually said (Fæ also outed my full name over there, which I don't use at that site; I've since redacted it). And it continues, now on Wikipedia-L; as someone noted below, this constitutes WP:CANVASSing.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:11, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Enforcing compliance with the WMF Code of Conduct correctly on Meta, is not "hounding". Please correct your misgendering of me, unless this is a "joke" you intend to defend and are trying to make into another pointy problem. See User:Fæ/Userboxes/me or read my user page. -- Fæ ( talk) 19:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  You're just forum shopping. There is no code of conduct violation. If one were determined to have transpired, then you'd have a case, but not for what you're doing (interfering with a technical role I have at another site). Apologies for any mis-gendering; what should it be corrected to? I simply saw someone else use "she" and continued with it. I'll use "they" in the interim.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Given language doesn't appear to be result from physics in what way are any of the pronouns we use not made up? ©Geni ( talk) 17:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  As opposed to the naturally-occurring pronouns "he" and "her"? GorillaWarfare  (talk) 17:52, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Hand-smelted from ore fresh from the gender mines, versus these counterfeit lab-synthesized pronounts that the scary queers wear. I'm so tired of re-hashing this with people. :( -- a. ^{get in the spam hole | get nosey} 18:12, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  MOS:NEO. It's nothing to do with how queer someone is, but how well-accepted something is in mainstream English. Singular they is, fortunately, making a strong comeback. MOS doesn't yet explicitly say to use it, but it's only a matter of time.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Nuke it till it glows then curse it in the dark Look there are a lot of issues around how to handle pronouns but this is the worst possible way to address that. ©Geni ( talk) 17:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Signpost goes out as an announcement on watchlists. Imagine being a new nonbinary editor and clicking that. EponineBunnyKickQueen ( talk) 17:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete per everyone else. Transphobic rants have no place on Wikipedia, and that's exactly what this is. -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 18:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - If the uploader wants to express a view that could be read in a specfic ideological way (however unintended), there are more appropriate forums and ways to do it. ShakespeareFan00 ( talk) 18:39, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• This page has been subject to serious canvassing: [4]. The behaviour by certain participants in this thread has been reprehensible. Please abide by civility norms, do not make personal attacks even against people you strongly disagree with, and certainly never make legal threats. (That said, delete per author request. I do not agree with the other arguments in favor of deletion.) -- Yair rand ( talk) 18:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • As a person who has !voted delete, I will confirm that I was not canvassed; I received my Signpost notification, read the article in question, saw the discussion below, came back in an hour and saw the deletion discussion, and chose to express my view on the ideal future of the article. While I do think the essay is transphobic and repulsive, I agree with you that the person involved in the link you posted took it too far. This incident is bad, but not so bad as to warrant such drastic measures. -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 18:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • For the record, I don't (yet?) feel personally attacked. People can get emotional about things, especially when they're having difficulty distinguishing between what something says and what someone imagines it might have said if they squint funny and imagine the worst (so, yes, there is a WP:AGF failure happening). If anyone thinks I'm actually transphobic, they're just very mistaken. A "failure" to buy into every idea ever advanced by anyone on one side of an issue does not transmogrify into opposition to everyone on that side of the issue. (Not absorbing this is what causes the left to splinter so much.) Disagreement over a doctrinal issue like "thou shalt write zirm if the subject uses that pronoun" is mistaken for hatred of people who use zirm or hatred of those about whom someone might use zirm, and these are patently fallacious assumptions which are usually wrong.)  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:20, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep When someone holds up a funhouse mirror, it might be smart to note that the distortions are, well, distorted. It’s when you complain about the mirror part that it becomes a problem. Yes, it’s a little unpleasant to realize that the whole world doesn’t accept our own self-conceptions as fact. Get over it. Qwirkle ( talk) 18:51, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep as the over the top histrionics about this demonstrate a total lack of perspective. Besides the irony of who's passing judgment on "editorial judgment", it's a website. And frankly, being someone who has an ASD (the terminology is FUBAR with the new DSM) there are constant references to the autistic tendencies of Wikipedia editors; unleashing my autistic screeching to demand people delete anything daring to express it would be prudish in the extreme, to say nothing of killing off some on-point and well-earned humor. "Harassment" and "marginalization"? Seriously? It's satire. Grow up. (And my personal views are irrelevant, I've expressed them elsewhere but will not now, and spare me efforts to infer them) The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 18:57, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Retract ideally and mark as historical to document the fuckup, but this is an option that's only available to the Signpost editors User:Kudpung and User:Bri. But failing that, delete. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Retraction seems preferable over deletion, for the documentation reason (even though it is already on archive.org). It seems User:Bri is not willing to take that path; has User:Kudpung weighed in? - Sdkb ( talk) 16:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete While I certainly understand humor and appreciate distorted realities to give us a nudge, I have an objection to humor against marginalized groups. Transgender and non-binary people are being under pressure and discriminated against everywhere and their suicide rate is over the roof, don't make it worse for them. Let me give you an example, imagine a transgender person who was kicked of her parents' house because she came out to them and said "I prefer pronoun 'she'". Now, she's homeless and extremely depressed. Then she saw this page. How that's going to help her if not making it worse? Ladsgroup ^overleg 19:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  This, exactly, is what I meant by lack of perspective. How important do you really think this obscure backwater of Wikipedia is that it'll have any effect, either way, on someone undergoing that kind of trauma? The world isn't censored, plus there's a chance that someone actually might get the true point of this even without the author's answer key above. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 19:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  • @ The Blade of the Northern Lights: an obscure backwater of Wikipedia? The Signpost is plastered on several thousands of user pages on the English Wikipedia alone. Plus emails, RSS feeds, Global delivery list, those who read it via watchlists, as well as Twitter, Facebook, and possibly other venues too. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

    You take this page far too seriously. That it's there doesn't mean more than a tiny percent of people click through to actually view it. It's obscure, and no matter how puffed-up editors get about their work on Wikipedia it's pretty clear No One Outside Really Cares. Besides, it's less of a burden to not feel self-importance attached to my work on Wikipedia. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 19:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

    By that logic, it's OK to mock gay vanuatuans because they make up a tiny percent of the world. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

    Swing and a miss. Not even close. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 19:56, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

    For perspective, the last month's humor column received a total of 2,151 views over the course of a month. It peaked on the day of release with about 260 views. Argento Surfer ( talk) 20:25, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

    Blade, while your points are sound, the 2nd order effects of the decision on this page could indeed significantly impact on the many LGBT+ youth struggling with suicidal thoughts and depression. Precedent and attitude among wikipedians helps determine content policies, which in turn govern the content & form of our main space article, which influences the media, which influences attitudes among the general public, and hence the degree of acceptance or traumatic prejudice experienced by LGBT+ . Most especially the +, who are still a frontier case.

Interesting even Trans were on said frontier as little as 5 years ago – and that has changed thanks to Wikipedians. Contrary to the opinion of some, history shows its not always the case that Wikipedia needs to follow the Media – sometimes we lead it. With the Chelsea Manning case, while we needed to wait until the media settled on respecting her choice of name before we had lasting consensus to do so ourselves, it was also Wikipedia which to a degree drove the change of use in the world's media. This was thanks to the heroic actions of certain editors. They boldly changed the name of Chelsea's article at a time when the vast majority of the media were still using her deadname. As you know Journalists often check Wikipedia before writing on a hot topic. Seeing that we were respecting her choice of name & pronoun, they began to follow suite. Traditionalists managed to get the name changed back, but the heroic editors had defended the change long enough for irreversible momentum to develop in worldwide media. The names and deeds of Morwen, Josh Gorand and Steven Gerald will never be forgotten. By the time the matter went to Arbcom, it was almost too easy to get a progressive ruling, as otherwise Wikipedia would have been to the right even of the Daily Mail and part of Fox. It will be a while before its feasible for us to get a similar result for intersex/non binary/gender fluid, but hopefully the time is not too far off. FeydHuxtable ( talk) 08:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

This page isn't about using "she" or "he". It's about pronouns that aren't in common usage like "xe" Argento Surfer ( talk) 19:36, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

And the relationship that insisting on xe, etc., has to insisting on trademark over-stylization, or religious honorifics, or whatever. People seem to be missing that part.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:42, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Factually incorrect. The opening line is "It, SMcCandlish, hereby declares Its personal pronoun to be It, beginning with this sentence. It has come out as a trans-biological explicate manifestation of the Multiverse's implicate reality, made of the stuff of stars." That is making a direct parody of anyone that asks for the respectful use of gender neutral pronouns. It is transphobic and the essay is deliberate anti-LGBT+ misinformation, despite the author repeatedly and bizarrely claiming it is not. -- Fæ ( talk) 20:00, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Which part is misinformation? That's the second time you've claimed it to be such. Argento Surfer ( talk) 20:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

A throwaway line about honorifics the end doesn't change the hundereds of lines before it that are about the pronouns people prefer to be refered by. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 19:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Which Wikipedia does not use in its own voice. Shall we start using bigger fonts and bright colors, too?  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:53, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Actually we do: MOS:GENDERID. We write In January 2017, she underwent sex reassignment surgery, not "In January 2007, she, as he prefers to be refered by, underwent sex reassignment surgery. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 20:00, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Well, of course we do, with actual words that our readers all recognize. We don't do it with neologisms (per MOS:NEO if you want to continue with the P&G links. :) This was never about "he", "she", and "they", obviously. It's about inventing something non-standard in the language and then insisting that everyone else has to go along with it. (I specifically went for a different kind alteration than tritely coming up with another new word, and instead bent usage of an existing one, just for variety's sake, and because humor requires exaggeration.) The central point is that WP doesn't write in bleeding-edge "post-English".  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:12, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

It's not against a marginalized group, it's against language-change activism claiming to speak for a marginalized group, and distorting the difference between "include what reliable sources tell us about this subject's pronouns preferences, including a neologism" and "use a neologism in Wikipedia's own voice or else you are being transphobic". The latter simply isn't true.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:42, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

@ SMcCandlish: Just... stop talking about this subject. Please. This is really embarassing. -- a. ^{get in the spam hole | get nosey} 19:46, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

= "Stop defending yourself from our witch-hunt, no matter how badly we distort what the essay says and means, or how badly we character-assassinate you with pure fantasy about your views and motives." Declined. I have no issue with the Signpost piece being removed or hidden or whatever, but I won't stand by quietly while people make up nonsense lies about me. Who would?  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

User:The Blade of the Northern Lights: As a person who went through similar situation (I was homeless for a month because of being gay four years ago) I can tell you I have a little bit of perspective, My reasoning is that someone who is experiencing such trauma is actually more vulnerable to jokes or being undermiend than you think. Ladsgroup ^overleg 19:50, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

And mine is that people should be allowed to express things as they see fit. No more, no less. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 19:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

People have a legal right to be offensive, yes. But Wikipedia isn't a project in libertarian free speech dystopia. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 20:10, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

You appear to misunderstand what Wikipedia discussion spaces are for. People should not plot criminal acts, promote hate crimes or use the site to harass minority groups. You may think that is a terrible burden that stops free expression, but it is the price of having a civil community on this project. There are plenty of other websites for your idealised free expression to happen, especially if you desperately need to publish transphobic crap because you think it is funny. -- Fæ ( talk) 20:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

My understanding of Wikipedia is not in serious dispute. And the level of sanctimony from both your comments above further convinces me that letting the most sensitive people run the show is dangerous. I'm no libertarian, merely wanting to have different viewpoints allowed in projectspace is important to me. You are conflating fact with opinion, and I'm sure you know it. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 20:21, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Remove from the signpost as inappropriate for this venue. This is not funny and was taken too far. Natureium ( talk) 20:11, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete This is remarkably disgusting and stupid, even by Wikipedia's low standards. Did no one really think through how utterly offensive this would be to the thousands of user talk pages it gets plastered on? Praxidicae ( talk)
• Keep per the spirits of WP:RGW and WP:CENSOR, The Blade of the Northern Lights, and Lenny Bruce. Generally object to Wikipedia social activism and special protection for any group. Discrimination for a minority is just as bad as discrimination against one; it's still discrimination. I've already read the Delete arguments and the condescending lecturing inflicted upon previous Keepers. I'm unconvinced by the arguments and unimpressed by the lecturing, so I'm unlikely to change my !vote. But flame on if you must. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:43, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Mandruss, WP:CENSOR, EEng, and Richard Pryor. As well as, according to Wikipedia's basic backbones, we have to assume good faith that the point of view that the author is describing to us in his notes, both on this page and the page under discussion, is the point of view that the essay was written from. And assuming good faith and seeing it from that point of view, it doesn't seem to violate WP:CENSOR. Randy Kryn ( talk) 21:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  EEng hasn't commented on this page. Argento Surfer ( talk) 21:29, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Neither has Richard Pryor. E Eng 22:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Oh, I thought we were doing "in the spirit of" honoring. EEng popped to mind because his user and talk pages have often been under scrutiny and censorship-ready eyes. So not per EEng, but "per" EEng. Randy Kryn ( talk) 21:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  I thought that may have been what was going on, but I was hoping EEng had commented elsewhere. This conversation about humor could use some levity. Argento Surfer ( talk) 21:48, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete This is a real nadir for the Signpost, and given this particularly groan-worthy comment by the editor, I doubt we'll see a retraction. Parabolist ( talk) 21:31, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Side comment - this is why Wiki’s cutesy made-up vocabulary is a Bad Thing. Only on Wiki do you see the word “editor”, and have to ask yourself “‘editor-meaning-writer/researcher’, or ‘editor’ in normal human English?”

  (That’s all, you can all go back to your auto-de-fe...well, except for the inevitable Hyphen Guardian, who will decide those shoulda been s-dashes, not z-dashes.) Qwirkle ( talk) 21:49, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  "Auto-de-fe? What's the Auto-de-fe?" Argento Surfer ( talk) 22:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  It's auto da fe, an Inquisition reference, which is apt to inspire another round of finger-pointing, like Fæ engaged in over the word pogrom. Watch what you say or else!  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:15, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete. I'm sorry, SMC and Barbara, I recognize you were trying to be funny, and I've certainly made plenty of very similar missteps, but this clearly offends enough people that we shouldn't keep it in the Signpost. Mandruss's comment that discrimination for a minority is just as bad as discrimination against one isn't quite correct; the difference isn't majority or minority, the different is between laughing at someone with more power, and someone with less. We can keep this in SMC's personal user space, and I'll be going to say as much in that MfD, but the Signpost is the unofficial voice of us editors, and has a lot of influence. -- GRuban ( talk) 21:32, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I'm actually laughing at editors (mostly not part of that minority) who want to write about the minority in the minority's own lingo (often an individual idiolect). I'm quite disappointed at the number of respondents here who don't seem to want to understand that.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
    • Well, um, if you look at the top of this section, the nominator of this MfD (1) is a prolific and experienced WP editor, and (2) identifies as a they, and (3) doesn't seem to find it funny. So, I'm going to go out on a limb here, and venture that the target was missed. Having to explain a joke is already not a great sign. Having to grab people by their virtual lapels and figuratively shake them while insisting that they should find it funny, and that you were really on their side all along, if only they weren't being so stubborn and not wanting to understand it is, um ... Yeah. -- GRuban ( talk) 22:45, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep, but retract. And perhaps reexamine editorial standards, while you're at it... Benjamin ( talk) 21:33, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Retract, delete, and apologize. This is extremely misguided and one of the most shocking bits of incivility I have ever seen on Wikipedia. This horrific attempt at "humour" pokes fun at people who are already marginalized by society and by the English language, and makes them feel shitty. I am appalled at the temerity of those who wrote this article, and even more dismayed at those who thought this was okay to publish. Keeping content such as this in your userspace reflects poorly on you, but publishing it in the Signpost reflects poorly on us all. Bradv 🍁 21:41, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Commentary on MOS:GENDERID or its implications for inter-editor interactions is absolutely allowable, but not sure what the hell the authors or Signpost editors were thinking putting this sardonic piece in The Signpost unless they just wanted to stir up a shitstorm. Not only a professional offense-taker (no offense intended) would take offense to this piece. Satirical humor is not the way to express sensitive opinions in a serious collaborative project. —DIYeditor ( talk) 21:44, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete and/or retract Is this really the hill you want to die on? ― Susmuffin  ^Talk 21:49, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  ...With an edit summary of People have been fired for less. Yeah, maybe we should dock him a day’s wages, eh? Qwirkle ( talk) 21:54, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  And who's this imaginary "you" dying on a hill? I've already said I agree with the deletion from the Signpost; the Signpost main editor Bri hasn't commented, nor has the sub-editor (or whatever), Barbara (WVS). I only see one army running up a hill and bleeding. Updated: I instead figure it should be collapse-boxed, or hidden from the Signpost ToC or something, since if deleted people would never understand what dispute was about in a month or a year.]  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC); updated:  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Strong delete. While I do not believe that nonstandard gender pronouns should be used in articles (per MOS:NEO), there are ways of expressing this opinion without being extremely transphobic. This reflects extremely poorly upon Wikipedia and goes against everything I believe Wikipedia to stand for. As an editor of The Signpost (though not an editor-in-chief), I feel I am at least partly responsible for this essay’s appearance in our newspaper’s latest issue, and I apologize for not preventing this from being published. —  pythoncoder  ( talk |  contribs) 21:58, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Now that the page has been blanked, I would like to switch my position to weak keep for its current form. This would (partially) head off the censorship arguments and hopefully ensure people don’t make this same mistake again. —  pythoncoder  ( talk |  contribs) 03:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete and publish a postmortem about how this made it to publication. -- Ori Livneh ( talk) 22:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• The page should be blanked and replaced with an explanation of why the content is problematic, how it ended up in the Signpost, and what changes have been made because of it. Barring that, delete as inappropriate for a diverse and inclusive project. The point the author says they were trying to make could have been made without offending people. This page does not represent us well and is beyond the point of WP:TNT. -- AntiCompositeNumber ( talk) 22:14, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ Ori Livneh and AntiCompositeNumber: given this was actively endorsed by both editors of the Signpost when problems were pointed out, one of whom which seems to be more interested in disparaging their critics than take responsability for publishing this piece of garbage, I wouldn't hold my breath for a post-mortem or a retraction. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 22:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

  Oh, I'm not expecting one. I'm just saying that it would be the only circumstance where this content should be kept anywhere remotely visible. -- AntiCompositeNumber ( talk) 00:25, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Addendum: I see all the references to WP:NOTCENSORED below, and point them to WP:NOTNEWS. When it comes to "What Wikipedia is not", the Signpost is a special case. As Bri mentioned in From the editors in this issue, the Signpost is the only notable publication by the Wikipedia community; for the Wikipedia community. The Signpost must and will reflect the views of inclusion and diversity that built the community they serve. -- AntiCompositeNumber ( talk) 14:53, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete quickly. The nastiness of this is well-discussed above. Additionally, by being associated with the "newspaper" of Wikipedia, this has the potential for causing severe repetitional damage to the project as a whole, as to an external viewer this isn't just the ignorant views of a single editor but something with stronger ties to the project. -- LukeSurl ^{t c} 22:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep. It's quite a modest proposal. Jonathunder ( talk) 22:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

A Modest Proposal punched up, not down. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 23:04, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Like Swift, the writer of this essay punches in a different direction than a cursory reading would indicate. Jonathunder ( talk) 23:29, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Authors don't get to decide or dictate how readers understand their works especially not when one of the primary topics of the work is a frequent target of harassment and hate (and much, much worse). ElKevbo ( talk) 23:45, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply

Nor do hasty judgments get to decide meaning or dictate it for more careful critics. Jonathunder ( talk) 00:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Strong delete. There's no reason to be transphobic, especially in Wikipedia's newspaper. Trans people are here to build an encyclopedia too and should be treated as such; articles like this in the community's newspaper are not going to help with editor retention for LGBT editors and invite charges of systemic bias against the project. I agree with some of the editors above that a snarky, nasty article like this one is not the way to raise issues with MOS:GENDERID. -- Chumash11 ( talk) 23:08, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete when humor targets discriminated groups it is not humor anymore. This was recently show in the Ligue du LOL affair in France. Humor can lead to harrassment, even if the original intention was not to harass. There is place enough for humor to express itself in the variety of subjects that do not offend anyone. I specially find the introductory words " It has come out as a trans-biological explicate manifestation of the Multiverse's implicate reality, made of the stuff of stars. " problematic. The juxtaposition of "biological" with "trans" when we all know referring to biology is insulting to some people sets the tone from the first phrase. -- Nattes à chat ( talk) 23:18, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - Not remotely funny and that's coming from someone who generally laughs at everything, There's having a laugh and then there's being transphobic, Deserves to be deleted off the face of the earth and then some. – Davey2010 ^Talk 23:22, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Strong Keep. (at great risk of offending all the weak and timid) Keep per all the keeps above and those that follow. This whole thing's a joke. It appears that the funniest part is that the deletionists here don't "get it". Someone wrote about "suicide rates", but failed to mention that of professional funny people, aka comics. Anytime one says or writes anything meant to be humorous, one risks offending those who "read (write?) between the lines" for whatever reason. The Signpost should not be censored for any reason once any article its editors have agreed to publish gets read by those who choose (opt in) to read it! Those who would censor this great publication should SELF-WHALE before writing/editing anything else. Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  23:45, 28 February 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - Admittedly my first reaction was just to roll my eyes at this article, but other editors have raised good points that this article if allowed to stand could definitely bite editors. Additionally, while I don't think it's my place to demand an apology, I would encourage people who were involved with the decision to write and publish this article to seriously consider apologizing as a token of good faith toward anyone who may have felt slighted or attacked by the article. I for one regret not speaking up when I saw this article in the draft section of the current Signpost issue. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 00:08, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete I'm not really an active editor at all, but I actually have a friend who attempted suicide in part due to constant transphobia like this. A lot of people at school kept on calling them "it" and saying things such as like "it is not a person" (Also a direct quote from the text, btw). That's all I'm comfortable saying on the matter. I feel sick from reading this now. GreenLipstickLesbian ( talk) 00:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Which is utterly unrelated to the essay. The "It" in the piece is a fictional character who personally insists on "It", for claimed post-human and self-aggrandizing reasons; it has more to do with egotistical celebrities than anything (e.g. " Ke$ha", and see how that RM discussion went). It's the diametric opposite of what you're talking about, which is labeling by third parties. Look, there are only a few pronouns in English. Any material tweaking one of them is necessarily going to coincide with any number of "something somewhere happened to someone" things.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:10, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm sorry if this is a stupid question that you've answered before, I'm sort of tired right now (because yay scholarship application deadlines!), but if this isn't about the pronouns people used, but rather celebrities, then why did you call the piece "Pronouns beware", talk about pronouns throughout the majority of the iece and only make one Prince reference at the very end? I'm sorry, I'm sure you answered this before/ have a perfectly logical reason but just I'm super-duper tired right now. Hopefully you're off having a great Friday night right now, so it's okay if you don't get back to me/answer at all. GreenLipstickLesbian ( talk) 03:42, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I didn't title it that, Barbara (WVS) did, as a Signpost editorial decision about which I wasn't asked. It focuses on an imaginary cult leader doing something weird with pronouns (something different from what TG/ NB people do with pronouns), and closes with legalistic handwaving, to combine in one piece an objection to editors doing weird stuff to English with honorific aggrandizement, trademark and marketing stylization demands, and insertion of neologistic changes to pronoun usage into our articles. That the last of these is typically done by editors in relation to TG/NB subjects is incidental; criticizing the practice as non-encyclopedic writing (when done in Wikipedia's own voice) is doing just that; it is not an attack on TG/NB people and what they do in their private lives. "It's about pronouns ergo it must be an attack on genderqueer people" isn't a sound position, but one that various people are taking here. I've already conceded that it was probably predictable that various people would take that position no matter what, and thus that assenting to re-use of my userspace essay as a piece in Signpost was a bad idea. But no amount of willful misinterpretation of the piece as transphobic can make it so, nor retroactively inject me with transphobic intent. The worst I'm supposedly guilty of is being less sensitive to likelihood of some people taking offense (whether it's reasoned offense or not) than some would like. I'll repeat that people's assumptions that I'm not under the LGBT+ banner myself are false, though I do not dwell on such matters here.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:00, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete or blank per what others have said above. This isn't humourous, nor is it Wikipedia-related or appropriate for a publication like the Signpost. — k6ka 🍁 ( Talk · Contributions) 01:00, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep. I was acting Editor-in-Chief of The Signpost for this issue and solely responsible for approving publication of the item in question. In evidence of my !vote I present this self-defeating Speaker's Corner that cautions against use of offensive speech. Offensive is in the eye of the beholder, and acting like you are a captive audience of The Signpost's humour column is farcical. Does T&S really protect against seeing ideas like that, based on (I guess) an accidental click-through? Okay, yes, I thought there might be some offense taken before approving publication of this; it's part of the juggling act of making an engaging, interesting publication that is also a platform for opinions, even if they are unpopular ones. Just a little thought experiment: if this had been run as an op-ed where each farcical point was instead couched as "let's not endorse pronoun choice in the MOS", would that be up for expungement from the history of this project too? Or is it the label "humour" that makes it verboten? Or the mere suggestion that one can find overindulgence in symbols and unfamiliar terms humorous? Since unfunny humor is not a valid reason for deletion, then we are only left with the postulate that talking about pronouns is so hurtful that it can't be allowed. Is that where we are going? ☆ Bri ( talk) 03:08, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • As an oh-by-the-way, this deletion debate was posted to exactly one on-wiki forum with rather inflammatory language "...derides the respectful use of personal pronouns..." : not a very good way to observe WP:CANVASS IMO. I'm going to post elsewhere. ☆ Bri ( talk) 05:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I can't speak for others but a genuine conversation about how to handle this issue would be welcome. A disingenuous, mean-spirited swipe at groups of people who already experience significant harassment and hatred is not welcome especially when it doesn't advance the discussion it aimed to advance. At best this was extraordinarily clumsy; at worst it actively hateful and counter to our community norms.

  We can - and should - discuss difficult and sensitive issues with one another. We should not do it in ways that are deliberately and actively hateful, especially not in semi-official or promoted venues like this one. ElKevbo ( talk) 03:14, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  deliberately and actively hateful - The page's author has clearly stated that he had no such intent. Are you saying he's lying about that? If you are saying he's lying, are you prepared to back that up with evidence? If you are not saying he's lying, can you explain how one can be deliberately hateful without his knowledge? ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I don't know. I hope that it's "merely" ignorance and not deliberate but the discussion so far is not very convincing. More importantly, it doesn't matter if it was done deliberately or ignorantly - it shouldn't have been done and the editors should definitely not have allowed it to be published. There are multiple failures of judgement here. ElKevbo ( talk) 03:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  It certainly matters that we say what we mean, rather than just throwing tough, hyperbolic words around. ― Mandruss  ☎ 03:47, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  There's also a difference between "ignorance" (a lack of knowledge or information) and "unwillingness to avoid an issue just because some people are very sensitive about it."  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:06, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The page's author, yes. But how do you explain this by Bri? Notice that ElKevbo wasn't talking about the article's author, and also notice that this thread is under Bri's !vote. Your comment seems like a red herring, sorry. wumbolo ^^^ 22:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm not seeing any deliberate hatefulness there, either, sorry. Apparently your mind-reading skills are far better than mine. ― Mandruss  ☎ 23:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Re, "a genuine conversation about how to handle this issue would be welcome": See here, first paragraph; we've already talked the matter to death in serious tones, with extremely unproductive results. Trying humor was an experiment worth doing, even if this particular one failed ("was extraordinarily clumsy"?). I'm skeptical that this can be approached with humor at all on WP, because some editors evince a view that humor cannot come anywhere near certain topics; if it has to do with people who do inappropriate things in the encyclopedia when writing about that subject, then it must nevertheless just be an attack on the subject itself, somehow, no matter what. It doesn't seem to matter how fallacious that idea is; it feels correct to certain individuals. We can't "discuss difficult and sensitive issues" when one segment of such a discussion will demonize as transphobic monsters those who don't agree perfectly with them (even if they agree on 99.99% of it and just diverge on one point, like using neo-pronouns).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:06, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Hey Bri thanks for weighing in and explaining. I think if only this had been an earnest discussion on MOS issues it would've been a classic good article for The Signpost. However, it is a derisive screed against choice in pronouns, or reads as such. I don't see how this can be seen as a constructive contribution to the Wikipedia newspaper. There is a way to collaboratively approach differences and this was not it. The mockery goes beyond the purportedly intended topic. —DIYeditor ( talk) 03:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  @ Bri: In another article in this same issue, you wrote that the Signpost is a "publication by the Wikipedia community; for the Wikipedia community". We're not censoring you, we're announcing loudly and clearly that this article does not represent the views of the community. It is not "engaging" or "interesting"; it is barely thought-provoking, and it certainly is not "humour". Whatever point the article was trying to make is buried under insensitive and offensive transphobic rhetoric, with a dose of religious mockery to boot. The Signpost has failed us, and I hope that you and the others responsible can acknowledge that. Bradv 🍁 03:57, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete - What the H@$^! I see no humor in this. I also see no reason why using the British spelling of humour makes it any less humourless. I also don't understand what this has to do with the red giant nucleosynthesis that gives rise to the carbon of which we are partly constructed and the nitrogen and oxygen we breathe, but that doesn't matter. Robert McClenon ( talk) 03:17, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Given the great efforts we have towards respecting the gender identity of BLP and things like deadnaming, this is not respectful of that. -- Masem ( t) 05:28, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Withdraw and blank This is by far the most shocking and offensive and inappropriate thing that I have ever read on the Signpost or anywhere else on a quasi-official Wikipedia page. People who get their jollies by mocking the weakest and most marginalized among us are truly sick and deserve social condemnation. What the hell went wrong that allowed this stinking pile of crap to be posted on a high visibility page? It is bizarre and offensive to every right thinking person. I have never once said this before, but Speedy Delete. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:27, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete It is reasonable to make fun of groups in authority / power or oneself. Not reasonable to do so of a marginalized group IMO. Doc James ( talk · contribs · email) 06:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Courtesy blank obviously and delete -- I rarely agree with Fæ but this' one of these occurrences. The write-up is sheer pathetic from a multitude of angles and I don't know the damn reasons behind the editorial approval, unless they are willing to draw attention onto themselves by these stunts, which have been going for long. The point that SmC/BBP wishes to bring before the readers can be done in a far more diplomatic and non-discriminatory manner. ∯WBG ^converse 11:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep per Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored.

As you travel through life you will encounter attempts at humor that you find to be offensive. See [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc6QxD2_yQw ], which documents and complains about some very offensive material that is for some reason widely accepted as being OK. Go ahead and flame the "comic", boycott its sponsors/advertisers, etc., but do not attempt to censor. Besides being morally repugnant (who are you to tell me what I am allowed to see?) you are extremely likely to end up experiencing the Streisand effect up close and personal.

I have some advice for the censors. Don't read things that you find to be offensive. Unless you are tied to a chair with your head in a clamp, your eyes taped open, a self-refreshing Wikipedia feed on a monitor, and the Wikipedia Song blaring into your ears, nobody is forcing you to read and respond to The Signpost. Simply stop clicking on the links marked "editorial" or "humor". The fact that you have a choice about what you read means that if you encounter something that you are offended by you only have yourself to blame.

If you are tied to a chair, etc., let me address your captors: First, keep up the good work. Second, please take away its keyboard. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 12:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Lean toward keep—It's too sensitive and too vulnerable to misinterpretation to be listed under "Humour". The piece would have made more sense recast as a non-humorous op. ed. on the subject; that was the responsibility of the co-editors in chief to suggest, but they appear to be far too laissez faire in their role. As well, it's just so weird in its current form (is that part of the "humour"?), and many readers won't take the time to decipher it. Humour is often a way to approach things we find difficult, through there are still boundaries. Now it's published, the horse has bolted. Why not let it remain, using the article and the disquiet it has generated as a springboard for a proper airing in the next Signpost edition, setting out the complexities of the apparent subject matter and this heated debate. That might serve a good purpose after all, but would be an intricate exercise in journalism. [No, I'm not volunteering, and disclosure: I'm an old wikifriend of SMcCandlish.] Tony (talk) 12:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• weak keep. I would read that signpost essay as bad or awkward satire (or attempt thereof). The best way to treat that is to ignore it and move on, instead now it has turn into political battle and we have Streisand effect. Yes while the signpost is not free per se and definitely should not discriminate minorities, it is nevertheless a place for frank discussions and contrarian opinions among Wikipedians and policing or wikilawyering that away is a bad idea.-- Kmhkmh ( talk) 13:01, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Lirazelf ( talk) 13:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC

• Delete or move to the author's userspace. Something like this in an editor's userspace would be one thing, but published in Wikipedia's internal newsletter it has the potential to make the project look really bad if reported in the press. This should have been caught before publication. — Granger ( talk · contribs) 03:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  It was already copied from something in userspace. This was not written for the Signpost, someone just asked to use it in an issue.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:07, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thanks for that clarification. In that case, delete from the signpost, but I think it's fine to keep in your userspace. — Granger ( talk · contribs) 01:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Had they used "Xie" or something of the source, it wouldn't be funny, but it wouldn't be unacceptable. Had they used something absurd, and run with it, it might have been vague amusing. But using "it" is problematic - "it" is used to dehumanise trans and non-binary people, and it's used in precisely the way this "humour" piece does. It plays off that sort of usage. I'm confident that it wasn't the intent, but the end product is transphobic and exclusionary. Intent is beside the point. Guettarda ( talk) 04:18, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I've already addressed this exact matter, above. It's not just unrelated, it's completely opposite what you're talking about (and it also is something absurd – a fictional "space-god" cult leader who demands to be known as "It" because of claims of transcendence). Had I used Xie, which is fairly commonly known to be in real-world use by various non-binary people, that would have actually been a problem; it would make many of the wild accusations on this page true, by tying this to TG/NB matters in particular instead of making a general point about non-standard English.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep. WP:CENSOR. Calidum 04:55, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• This should at least be delisted from the Signpost and archived. It might've been unintentionally offensive, but yet it was extremely offensive to the people it targets, as seen in some of the above messages. Regardless of whether it technically breaks any rules, it definitely breaks the spirit of them. ɱ (talk) 05:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  Delete This undoubtedly has been extremely offensive across the board. It breaks the policies mentioned in the nomination, as well as Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Regardless of no censorship allowed in articles, we cannot be allowed to insult and degrade minorities under the guise of humor. ɱ (talk) 18:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep While I disagree with the content strongly (as someone who doesn't use traditional pronouns), Wikipedia is not censored. If folks don't like it, post in the comments section, have a critical discussion about it, or write a counter article for the next edition of the Signpost. Captain Eek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!} 06:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete as a form of protest against some of the stories that the Signpost has run lately. I quote one of the authors: [5]

“

It's about Wikipedia editors engaging in language-change activism trying to push non-mainstream stylistic strangeness, including a) fake pronouns like zie and hirm, b) unusual trademark stylizations, and c) excessive honorifics. It has nothing whatsoever to do with off-site usages or the values (or value) of those who engage in them somewhere else.

”

There are more diplomatic ways to make the same point that would generate more light and less heat. This post was needlessly inflammatory and divisive. And "delete" because this is apparently the only way the community can show some form of disapproval for some of the most recent stories that have come out of the Signpost. -- Rs chen 7754 07:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Read as it is (rather than what people assume it is/says), I find nothing objectionable and I find it quite apropos in terms of various celebrity demands to be called preposterous things (I suppose this started with Prince, which was a legal maneuver, but these days it's reached absurd proportions, and perhaps everyone isn't aware of many of the current oddities if they don't follow social media). I think readers may have gotten triggered by the use of the prefix "trans" in the second sentence, but it's "trans-biological"; i.e., non-animate or beyond biological. I'm quite sensitive to transgendered persons not being misgendered and I have watchlisted numerous wiki articles to prevent that; this humor piece is not about that; it's about celebrity crazes in my opinion. Softlavender ( talk) 07:53, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  While there's some talk of the humour piece being trans phobic, I don't think it can be seen as directly attacking regular trans folk. Rather its more offensive to gender fluid/non binary / intersex folk. Perhaps I'm wrong, it's beacause this matter is hard to understand that I don't agree with any censure for the author, despite the level of outrage. FeydHuxtable ( talk) 08:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I have no lack of understanding of those matters, and we have singular they and other methods for dealing with how to write about such subjects encyclopedically – without resorting to neo-pronouns like ze, hirs, etc. Softlavender is correct that the piece is much more general (as I said elsewhere, it's in part a parody of Scientology, intentionally uses pseudo-religious mumbo-jumbo, and bends an existing pronoun in ways no one would go along with, rather than introducing a new one, specifically to distance the material from any association with TG/ NB matters. This discussion has simply totally focused on TG/NB stuff, and ignores the trademark, religious, and other "write it my way or else" stuff it's addressing; it has more to do with MOS:DOCTCAPS and MOS:TM than MOS:IDENTITY, and has no connection to a question (which no one actually asks) like "should WP refer to transwomen as 'she'?". At any rate, one thing that's happening here is sheer disbelief on the part of the hyper-sensitive that not everyone shares the exactly same sensitivity level, without being stupid and/or their enemy. It's a very condescending and unconstructive attitude.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Speedy delete. Though while very much respecting the strenght of feeling here, I don't agree with censure for the author or the editors who selected it for Signpost. My first reaction was to find it the funniest & most artful composition I've read on Wikipedia for years. 99% sure the intent is mainly to protect certain encyclopaedic values and maybe have a dig at elite SJWs, not at LGBT+. It's elite SJWs who right now would be the only folk to have the front to make a sustained attempt at getting neo-pronouns used in the encyclopaedic voice. Still, while intent may be relvent to the question of censure, it's not to the case for deletion.This wasn't apparent at first glance, but on reflection the article is clearly highly offensive to some LGBT+ folk and those that care about them. FeydHuxtable ( talk) 08:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I don't object to deletion (or blanking, or something) of the Signpost copy, since that's a community resource, and enough people object that we needn't keep this piece of it. But there's no speedy deletion criterion that applies. You're probably thinking of WP:G10, but this doesn't qualify: it serves a WP-related purpose, and it doesn't "disparage, threaten, intimidate, or harass" anyone; it's simply criticizes an editorial practice (behavior and content, not editors, or encyclopedia subjects), namely mimicking logos, injecting PoV-laden honorifics, and use of neologisms that don't mean anything to most of our readers, especially for motivations of profit, politics, ego, or faith. PS: This also doesn't have anything to do with "SJW" stuff, other than in the most incidental way (people given that label are, yes, the most likely to be inserting things like zie into articles on TG and nonbinary people, but that's only one of many examples of inappropriate "do weird stuff to English" behavior; most of it's actually motivated by fandom, corporate interests, and religious fervor, in that order of frequency). Actually forgot one in the middle of that list: punctuation-dropping; certain genres of writing are unusually comma- and hyphen-hating, and fans of them try to use that style here, producing confusingly ambiguous gibberish.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete Blank (but keep) In practice it clearly and unsurprisingly causes a lot of unnecessary offense (and, incidentally, is consequently also liable to damage Wikipedia's reputation, and its ability to attract and retain LGBT+ editors). It isn't particularly relevant that the offense seems unintentional (per WP:AGF among other reasons), as the harm is done regardless. And WP:NOTCENSORED also seems irrelevant as this is not an encyclopedic article but a mere piece of humour (and in any case Wikipedia is not a democracy and is not a forum for free speech). Tlhslobus ( talk) 09:14, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • I've now changed above from Delete to 'Blank (but keep)' (which in effect is the current situation, at least for now) for basically the same reason given in my edit description ( see here) when restoring the link from the Signpost front page to the now blanked Humour page that also explains the blanking, leaves the link to here and says you can see what the fuss is about in the page history. My edit description reads: Undoing good faith edit. I fully agree with the blanking of the item as (presumably unwittingly) causing unnecessary offense, but preventing readers from finding out there has been a major row, and thus preventing them from making up their own minds about it, and leaving them mystified about where Humour went this month, seems to me to go too far in the direction of unnecessary censorship. Tlhslobus ( talk) 04:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Re "LGBT+ editors": I love how everyone here assumes I'm not in that acronym. The idea that everyone with a higher number than 0 on the Kinsey scale automatically buys into every idea advanced by anyone in the name of LGBT+ stuff is pure fantasy (and that specially goes for recently coined pronoun alternatives). While I'm neither conservative in most respects nor a Republican (in the US political party sense), I have to wonder whether more than 10% of the people commenting on this page are aware that LGBT conservatism exists (and that editors from that point on the spectrum are welcome here); people who identify that way politically generally do not buy into all this censorious hand-wringing about being super-mega-careful about what you say.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  By that logic we could never take any measures to prevent unnecessary offense, nor to encourage editor retention, nor to do anything at all about anything, since any measure we take could always be claimed to be upsetting to some other group. I can't speak for anybody else, but I am well aware of the existence of LGBT conservatives. Again I can't speak for anybody else, but the only assumption I have made about you is that you (and others) have been acting in good faith per WP:AGF and have not intended to cause offense, as already stated by me above - I neither know nor care whether you are LGBT+ or not, and have no reason to make any assumptions on the matter (for instance, both Christians and non-Christians have been known to wittingly or unwittingly offend Christians, and much the same can also be said of almost any other group I can think of) Tlhslobus ( talk) 05:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  That's a particular odd slippery slope argument, and doesn't actually relate to what I said. As for what you personally are assuming, including the AGF part, I thank you for that, but you seem to be in the minority of the respondents here so far.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Would have been bad enough in a month's time on 1 April. Top and bottom of it - this is NOT funny. If it is also offensive and not funny and I was the author, I would just back it out and curl up in embarrassment. Leaky caldron ( talk) 09:32, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep. It is amusing to see how User:SMcCandlish and User:Fæ are colliding, while plural_they are both advocates of the singular they. Both are missing the key issue, since using "they" for one-self is only underlining you are dissatisfied with the number you were assigned at birth. But like it or not, one person = one vote is the rule to apply. Pldx1 ( talk) 09:53, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep I think the point could have been made a bit more tactfully, but we have to be able to have discussions about topics like these without all the emotional reactions. Mr Ernie ( talk) 10:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep - even if the strongest critics are correct, which I doubt, as an example of "stupid things mean people said in 2019". I know people with "wacky pronouns" (zie, zer, etc.) and happily use them in a social context, but would not expect to see them in a Wikipedia article. I am also quite supportive of transhumanist ideas, but the people who feel they are transhuman simply because they have a magnet implanted subdermally do not need to be humoured in their biographies. All the best: Rich  Farmbrough, 10:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC). reply
  
• Keep - It's satire. Not particularly amusing satire, but satire nonetheless. — DoRD ( talk)​ 12:27, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment: Besides WP:CENSOR, which adequately describes and dismisses situations like this, has everyone forgotten that The Signpost exists as an on-line in-house newspaper published in the United States? The United States has a Constitutional amendment front-and-center in its Bill of Rights assuring writers, publishers, and editors Freedom of the Press. Those commenting have Freedom of Speech, but that doesn't negate, mute, or lessen the importance and rarity of freedom of the press. Randy Kryn ( talk) 12:57, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  And WP:NOTFREESPEECH adequately describes and dismisses arguments like this. wumbolo ^^^ 13:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  No, it doesn't, per "Wikipedia is free and open, but restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia". This concerns the Wikipedia newspaper, The Signpost, which is covered by the first amendment, not the encyclopedia. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:17, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Technically speaking, the First Amendment only applies against government imposition of would-be censorship (I would know, since 1st Am. stuff was my job, back in the 1990s :-). The stronger point is that an essay about avoiding pseudo-English in English Wikipedia doesn't "interfere with creating an encyclopedia", but the opposite. This also deflates the WP:POLEMIC-based argument. However, I'm not particularly concerned with the Signpost copy of this; the community arguably has more of an editorial interest in its e-newspaper content than it does in a userspace essay.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  ( edit conflict) The First Amendment is irrelevant in this case, because the Signpost is not self-hosted, and its platform is provided by the Wikimedia Foundation (which, obviously, would be well within its rights to control the content on its own servers). That the Signpost is a semi-formalized publication is also irrelevant to whether community policies and guidelines are applicable to it, since it is hosted as part of the English Wikipedia. Jc86035 ( talk) 13:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Taking your point of view into consideration, I'll amend my comment to say that an article chosen by the editors of The Signpost may not fit the letter of the law, but fits the spirit of the law. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press may not apply directly, although I can't imagine why not, yet the encyclopedia and foundation should allow the volunteer staff to put out the publication as they see fit, which, remember, allows on-page comments and discussion to become part of the entire article (full disclosure, my own slight contribution to the publication is doing an edit run, usually for minor edits like adding italics, when I notice a new edition has come out). Randy Kryn ( talk) 16:09, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Not only is the Bill of Rights irrelevant here because it only prevents the government from limiting freedom of the press, if you scroll down one section from WP:CENSOR you will come across WP:NOTFREESPEECH, which specifically says that Wikipedia "restricts both freedom and openness where they interfere with creating an encyclopedia". -- Ahecht ( TALK
  PAGE) 16:13, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep As satire the only person being belittled is the writer. If any one is so offended by this then be aware that you have permission to be offended, but that is all about the person being offended, not the writing. If any one is so offended that they feel like being blocked from editing en.Wikipedia, then self requested blocks are available. Graeme Bartlett ( talk) 13:04, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• I am not entirely sure if deletion through Wikipedia's typical means really applies to articles in the Signpost. Rather, I suppose I'd see it blanked? Or, perhaps, prefaced with a certain type of disclaimer/apology. I am not certain what the proper way to handle a meanspirited and insulting Signpost article, but I would prefer to treat it moreso as an actual publication rather than a personal essay created by some person. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat) 13:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep People are overreacting. 130.238.180.53 ( talk) 13:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC) — 130.238.180.53 ( talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
• Keep It's satire, see also WP:NOTCENSORED in some of the above !votes. Semi Hyper cube 13:39, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Also, this discussion might make it to WP:DELETION100. Semi Hyper cube 13:42, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep I agree that there appears to have been an emotional overreaction to something that is neither egregiously offensive or, even, against policy: WP:IDONTLIKEIT probably applies. WP:ASSUMEBADFAITH certainly does. —— SerialNumber 54129 13:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  What about WP:NPA? Bradv 🍁 13:54, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Did you really feel the need to link me to NPA? Did you really think I might not know of that page? Perhaps you thougt that linking might make something actually become a personal attack when it was not before? No? Excellent. —— SerialNumber 54129 14:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I've removed the link, as it appears to have offended you. See how easy that was? Bradv 🍁 14:42, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep per WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:HUMOUR, WP:Sarcasm is really helpful, WP:Tempest in a teapot, WP:We are all adults here, and WP:STRAWMAN (somebody should write that one). Personally, I don't think this article is great humour: the only place that made me laugh was the oblique reference to TAFKAP. But the cohorts of respectable editors getting all uppity offended, demanding censorship from their high horse, actually made me laugh much harder. Ban me if you must. — JFG ^talk 14:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep/Delete. Well this certainly has gotten the creative juices flowing, if argumentation can be interpreted as creative juices. I say keep it but delete it. Bus stop ( talk) 14:06, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You're completely wrong, of course, but I couldn't agree with you more. -- GRuban ( talk) 17:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep per WP:NOTCENSORED. Also, Fæ hasn't made a valid deletion rationale. Finally, the authors are certainly not trying to disparage anyone. The delete !votes (especially from the admins) says more about who they are than the content of this Signpost piece, which is not an encyclopedia article. Chris Troutman ( talk) 14:34, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep It is a "humorous essay" and, as such, is perfectly acceptable in Wikipedia-space. Deletion would make me want to edit this discussion and label it as "humor" as it has certainly attained such a status, in my honest opinion. Wikipedia Signpost essays are not "official opinions" of anyone at all, but deleting them sure as heck makes an "official statement". Collect ( talk) 14:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. If this was satire, it failed hopelessly in making a moral point. If it was intended as humor, it failed in being funny--it's just mean. We're not censored, but not deleting it sends a pretty clear message that we're OK with people making fun of other people in mean ways. Drmies ( talk) 17:39, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep per The Blade of the Northern Lights and Jonathunder. Satire is satire; often offensive, usually not funny to someone or other; the best thing to do is ignore it if you don't find it humorous and allow those who do to chuckle. Despite the opinion immediately above mine, this did make a point, and did not fail in being funny; some may not find it funny, that doesn't mean it's not. Happy days, Lindsay ^Hello 18:01, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Lindsay, that you enjoy chuckling at something that makes fun of people whose gender identities in many cases are already problematic enough, and may cost them their lives, sorry if I don't have much sympathy for that. Drmies ( talk) 18:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

    The word people is the operative part, and no person or group is above being the subject of satire. What's living without having a laugh at absurdities, such as the horrendously mangled writing that would arise out of the activism this satirizes? Lenny Bruce is an older example, Chris Rock a more modern one, of what good it can do for everybody. For the record, The Ringer is an absolute favorite (even more so among the disabled people I work with every day) and I regularly put on a Raymond Babbitt for a laugh; but then, The Big A (I wish there was a good offensive term for autism, even if the condition itself is stigmatizing enough in its own right we deserve our own slur) never did neatly fit into the paradigm of the Things To Get Grievously Offended About. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 06:40, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete I get where the writers are coming from but it was not particularly funny and very insensitive. Poking fun at marginalized groups is cheap and we, on Wikipedia, should strive to be inclusive. Since our mission is to build an encyclopedia, stuff like this serves no purpose and ends up as a distraction. Speedily delete would be my preference and perhaps the authors should consider taking the high road and make that request themselves. -- regentspark ( comment) 14:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment the !vote currently stands at (approximately, I may have miscounted) 48 to delete (including 5 as second/alternate choices), 3 to blank, 1 to "remove from the signpost", two to retract (one to mark as historical), 27 to keep, and 1 to "Keep/Delete". -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 16:09, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  ...and the votes based on anything like policy stand at about 15, all to keep. Qwirkle ( talk) 16:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  is that including the nomination statemnt, which all delete votes not linking policy are typically assumed to be concurring with? -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 16:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Given that the posterchild for odd pronoun use on Wikipedia is a heterosexual woman, Zoe Quinn, all of the nominator’s handwavings strike me as misdirection at best.

  The idea that some of the delete votes here are based on anything other than a visceral reaction is laughable.

  (Some of the keep votes, as well, no doubt.) Qwirkle ( talk) 17:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The nominator has gone farther than I, I will admit. But, the WMF has a policy based in non-discrimination, and this could easily be taken as discriminatory. Imagine that an editor wrote a piece for the Signpost, laughing about that Catholics wear ash on their foreheads. Imagine a Signpost piece making fun of Jews, or blacks. Would that be allowed to stand? -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 17:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  [C]ould easily be taken as discriminatory is very diferent from “discriminatory,” and how “easy” it is to do so is obviously debated. Qwirkle ( talk) 18:11, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Every delete vote is based on the exact policies that the nominator cited in their nomination for deletion. They're right there, in blue links even. It boggles the mind that every vote by a person who disagrees with you is de facto not policy based, even when they quote policy or when they agree with those who quote policy. You seem to be using the phrase "votes based on anything like policy" to be a synonym for "votes that agree with me" which is an idiosyncratic definition at best. -- Jayron 32 17:32, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  No. Perhaps every bare delete vote should be based on the nomination, but there’s no indication that is so in general, and certainly not here. You are confusing description and prescription. Qwirkle ( talk) 18:11, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Perhaps you missed including the nomination statemnt, which all delete votes not linking policy are typically assumed to be concurring with a couple comments up. This isn't a new thing, it's been like thatfor longer thatn I've been on Wikipedia. -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 18:21, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I could hardly have “missed” something I explicitly replied to. It’s at best wishful thinking, and at worse a pious fraud; either way, one of those “Sunday Truths” Wikipedia depends to much on. Qwirkle ( talk)

  Then you must have ignored it. WP:RFA comes right out and says it, everywhere else just follows that. -A lad insane  (Channel 2) 18:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• This is not a "vote" - the aim is to determine whether as a matter of Wikipedia policies raised this essay should be excised. "I don't like it" is, moreover, not a valid argument on any deletion discussions at all. So far, those citing actual policies appear to be !voting "keep", while those who feel no humor should remotely disparage anyone seem to be !voting "delete." Sadly, "offending no one" is not a Wikipedia policy as far as I can tell. Collect ( talk) 16:17, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Of course we can also ignore all rules and keep it but delete it. Bus stop ( talk) 16:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• It has never been a requirement to quote a list of policies for a vote to mean something. By default, it is reasonable to presume that someone voting delete with no policy links, agrees with the nomination and the policies quoted there. -- Fæ ( talk) 16:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• I think that is a very good point. I think we've lost the art of dialogue amidst the alphabet soup of policy abbreviations. Bus stop ( talk) 16:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete per the policies cited by Fæ in the opening nomination. Holy shit. That shows some fantastically poor judgement, and that's only if I'm being generous in my assessment. If I thought someone was being deliberately that bigoted, I'd be even more upset with it. Wow. Just wow. -- Jayron 32 17:06, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Strong Delete. Such bigotry is extremely disappointing and hurtful. This certainly doesn't belong in the Signpost. Kaldari ( talk) 17:40, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment. I am WP:INVOLVED, but I do think that we could have easily replaced it with the humor article that was sent in ( edit conflict). ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 18:21, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Neutral because apparently a middle ground can't be shown about this. – The Grid ( talk) 18:44, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. I don't for a moment think the writers or the editor intended this as any kind of attack piece, but I do think it appears to be mocking those for whom gender pronouns are important issues. It is badly misjudged. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 18:44, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Very weak keep. Weak delete The article is certainly questionable in some ways. It uses a mocking tone to describe a sensitive issue, which may be poor editorial judgment. However, it is unclear how the article harrasses transgender Wikipedians. The article clearly deals with WP:BLP writing style, which means that the joke is about public figures rather than individual users, and no individual user is named or alluded to. Instead, it is clearly about the writing style decision of whether or not non-binary individuals should be referred to using pronouns that are not commonly accepted. Banning this type of discourse as transphobic could place it in the same category as dangerous extremist views like pedophilia activism even though this point of view is accepted in the centre-right. Thus, a removal over TOS issues could set a bad precedent and limit the range of acceptable politicial viewpoints on Wikipeia to centre-left and beyond. Leugen9001 ( talk) 19:04, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Edit: upon further thought, because this is a Signpost article that fails to represent Wikipedia, it should be deleted from Signpost but not userspace. Leugen9001 ( talk) 19:20, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I wasn't aware that bigotry (even unintentional) was a political viewpoint. Can you explain? -- Jayron 32 19:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  That question assumes that the article is bigoted. What should the standards for bigotry be for Wikipedia? In what ways does the article encourage discrimination or hatred? Also note that I have changed my viewpoint to weak delete. Leugen9001 ( talk) 19:20, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  It is when you understand the context of the way that the use of pronouns is used to dehumanize transgender people (to treat them as less than fully human) or to delegitimize the concept of being transgender person (that is, to make the claim that there are no earnestly transgender people, that they are faking, or that the entire notion that someone could be transgender isn't "real"). The use of language to do this deliberately and with malice is well documented and obvious if you are paying attention. For example, in the case of the first, the use of "it", which in English is reserved solely for non-human nouns, can be easily taken as dehumanizing. In the case of the second, the refusal to use the gender pronouns associated with someone's gender identity, and to insist only on using those associated with one's assigned gender at birth, is a clear denial of the reality of being transgender (it 'delegitimizes' it). In both cases, that these actions are consistently taken with deliberate malice is why they are bigotry and not politics. Now, the original writer of the article may have been genuinely ignorant of these issues, and have meant no harm, but it doesn't make the outcome of such an article (its hurtfulness and harm) any different. Intent should be used to decide how to handle the writer. Outcome should be used to determine how to handle the content. The outcome of this article is that it is hurtful, bigoted writing and should be deleted per WMF:Non-discrimination policy. That's what I meant by "bigotry is not a political viewpoint". Dehumanizing people is always bigoted, and that shouldn't ever be considered a valid political stance. (and thanks for changing your vote by the way). -- Jayron 32 20:07, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  That characterization of the essay is incorrect. The essay does not dehumanize trans people; it uses "It" as an example of an uncommon pronoun rather than calling all trans people "It". It only delegitimizes the use of unconventional gender-neutral pronouns other than they in mainspace, which is far from dehumanizing or even delegitimizing trans people. Furthermore, delegitimizing being transgender, and especially delegitimizing non-binary gender orientations, should be seen differently than dehumanizing trans individuals. The former is a viewpoint held by mainstream religious conservatives and even some binary trans people; the latter is blatant hate speech. Banning the former would restrict the range of acceptable discourse to a small part of the political spectrum, which is clearly unacceptable. Edit at 02:39 2 March 2019 : clarification. Leugen9001 ( talk) 02:37, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  On the contrary, everything you said regarding delegitimizing could swap out any other group, be religious, ethnic, sex, or whatever, and it becomes unacceptable bigotry. You wouldn't say that "delegitimizing non-Christian religious orientations" or "delegitimizing equal rights for women" are valid political positions. Those are bigotry, and it doesn't become less so when the people being delegitimized are transgender. Also, I never said the bigots can't say bigoted things. They just need to be prepared to be called bigots when they do so. Free speech works both ways, and allows the just people in the world to call out and shame bigotry where it exists. We don't ban bigotry, we speak out against it. Repeatedly, loudly, and neverendingly. -- Jayron 32 06:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  You have not responded to the reasons why the article is not dehumanizing and does not delegitimize trans people. Also, delegitimizing Christian beliefs is a legitimate viewpoint: it's called not believing in Christianity. Leugen9001 ( talk) 17:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The elephant in the room is of course that a probable majority of Christians, who make up a very large percentage of Westerners (and others, especially in former colonial territories) don't believe in genderqueer, and are convinced that it's an abomination against God. And they have as much of an entitlement to be WP editors as anyone else. This tempest-in-a-teacup debate is a bunch of mostly like-minded progressives (self included) squabbling over subjective interpretation of a minor doctrinal matter about manufactured quasi-pronouns and how "permissible" it is to talk about them a certain way. This is echo-chamber stuff. The Three Little Pigs arguing over furniture placement in their straw hut while a whole pack of wolves is on the doorstep.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:27, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep + Blank. At first I thought the article might be a reference to SCP-426; the line about Unicode and "the Entity Who Until Recently Was Known as It" seemed to lean in a sci-fi fashion. But that last line really removes any doubt about what it's really addressing. The article was clearly in bad taste, as demonstrated by the backlash here and in article comments. However, I'd really rather not feed the "LGBTQ people are hypersensitive SJW snowflakes who get offended by everything and have no sense of humour and they want to silence all dissenters" narrative. Without the problematic bits at the start and end, the article had the potential to be a fairly decent satire piece about honorifics or something (e.g. "Super Kami Guru will allow this"). But I can see how those bits transform the article into a piece that can be interpreted as mocking or belittling a group of people. Family Guy can roll with the controversy, but Wikipedia should probably try to avoid doing things that would reflect poorly upon its reputation and incense parts of its userbase. Now personally, perhaps I've been desensitized by reading too much cancer in comments, but the article didn't strike me as particularly offensive; rather, it read to me as a questionable controversial take on a subject matter (widely open to misinterpretation) that would surely spark a lot healthy rational heated discussion in comments.

In any case, as Signpost is a newspaper, it should have accountability and own up to its mistakes. Deleting the article and the attached discussion would be counterproductive to those ends. A delist from the front page + WP:CBLANK should be sufficient, in my view. I'm satisfied with the current notice, which says: This column has been blanked because, in retrospect, it failed to make its intended point, while causing pain to other editors. The text is available in the page history. -- Ununseti ( talk) 19:40, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete Blank and keep (copied from Meta) These messages about "censoring" are very misguided, and instead they boil down to "we should not have standards at all". And moreover, "Wikipedia is not censored" doesn’t even describe relationship between editors. For example, if I will call any editor a very strong and offensive word, I will be censored and banned, and rightly so. If I do it on a different page with vague references, it will still be understood as such and likely censored, and rightly so.

  I strongly dispute the allegation that "These messages about 'censoring' are very misguided, and instead they boil down to 'we should not have standards at all' ". I have been very clear in saying that we should have standards and the there are many valid reasons for deleting content. My only objection is when the sole reason for deletion is that some group of editors find it to be offensive and/or not funny. I would also note the obvious double standard here; there are many things on Wikipedia -- including The Signpost -- that offend groups of people. Some are offended by any image of Mohammad. Some are offended by any use of the word Jehovah. Some are offended by any implication that the definition of "marriage" is anything other than between a man and a woman. Some are offended by any implication that Israel exists. Some are offended if a particular city is called Gdańsk. Others are offended if the same city is called Danzig. We regularly tell these offended people that we are not going to delete any content if the sole reason for deletion is because they are offended. Again, there are many good reasons for deleting content. Someone taking offense is not one of them. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 03:36, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  You arent trying to dispute the allegation, you are trying to shift the blame to others, and you are trying to mischaracterize them, and I strongly condemn these mischaracterization. I will again repeat my own words verbatim: "Wikipedia is not censored" doesn’t even describe relationship between editors. You are trying to evade the point that this Signpost article was targeted to editors. I strongly condemn you for your mischaracterization of the events. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 20:35, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Gotta love how free speech seemingly only is important because "I want to hurt minorities and say slurs". So much for "I didn’t want to offend" by doubling down on every possible point of offence... -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 20:00, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I have updated my reason, let's blank and keep it then. Even more, let's link it to this discussion, so then readers will see lapses in judgments of those who claim censorship, forgetting about WP:NOTFREESPEECH, and accuse people in canvassing – 1, 2. Even more, it shows that this entire incident is about the insistence that it is the responsibility of another person NOT to be offended as if the authors had no responsibility for their words. If it was owned ASAP, it wouldn't have been devolved into that. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 05:15, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It goes further and further. As I suspected, it continued with more accusations in canvassing, even though a lot of people came to know about this Signpost thing by other means. For example, there was a very protracted discussion in Wikimedia Discord right after publishing this Signpost article. It looks like the most rational decision now is to unblank this, and to leave it for posterity with edits and links to this drama, so the people will judge by themselves this coming of author against Fæ and others. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 06:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Weak Keep but leave blanked While many have mentioned "censorship of journalism", journalistic outlets and other media outlets have also often published retractions and prevented material from being reprinted (ie. Disney has never released Song of the South on home media in the US). Newspapers have in the past publicly apologized and disowned offensive content they have published without deleting it. So, better to leave the page up but leave it blanked and insert some sort of official statement from the Signpost team. My opinion of the article's content and its editors is perhaps best reserved for another venue. Pinguinn  🐧 00:54, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment User:Fae has recommended that should a decision to delete be made here, the identical userpage article should also be deleted. I disagree because the consensus is different for the two pages. The current consensus for the Signpost article seems to be "delete", while the consensus for the userspace article seems to be "keep". Some users have explicitly stated that they support the deletion of the Signpost article but not necessarily the userspace article. Leugen9001 ( talk) 02:47, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep While I empathize with the feelings of those who oppose this column, Wikipedia should not be censored to accommodate peoples' feelings. This column seems to be a genuine attempt at humor rather than transphobia as some claim, and does make a valid point about the evolving (mis-)usage of pronouns. Elspamo4 ( talk) 03:56, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Blanking is sufficient. (But an apology would be nice.) As someone who prefers they/them pronouns the piece made my eyes roll out of my skull, but I'm not sure any of the polices Fæ brought up support deletion. WP:POLEMIC seems focused specifically on user space, WP:Harassment on targeting specific users (and not on broadly hateful speech), and WMF:Non-discrimination_policy on Wikimedia employees and contractors. I don't see anything in the terms of service to support deletion, either. In any case I am an archivist at heart. I'll add that I object to the comparison to the work of Lenny Bruce. It's Mallard Fillmore at best. :) WanderingWanda ( talk) 04:40, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• KEEP - Been around Wikipedia for nearing 14 years & I thought I seen it all. So now, we're going to censure a Signpost piece. Next thing you know, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will demand that the phrase mankind be replaced with peoplekind. PS: I think I'm going to engage in an involuntary personal protein spill. GoodDay ( talk) 04:51, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Without question delete as blatantly in conflict with numerous provisions of WP:WWIN. I have to say, the only thing that disappoints me more than the fact that two experienced editors thought this would be "funny" is seeing numerous others support it's maintenance as "harmless". First off, that's not the test we use for determining what is appropriate on this project. If content doesn't serve the process of building the encyclopedia (if only in an attenuated, tangential fashion) it is by definition subject to removal. This screed clearly serves no legitimate, pragmatic function that could possibly be significant enough to outweigh the part it is playing as a lightning rod for disruption, a source of deep, sincere, and reasonable offense for certain of our community members, and a timesink consuming community energy that could be better spent elsewhere. Defending it on the basis of "it doesn't offend my sensibilities personally" is very much missing the point by light years. I believe Wandering Wanda is quite correct when she notes above that this is not a case of WP:POLEMIC insofar as that policy is concerned. It is however polemic speech in the general sense, without a doubt, and falls under WP:NOTSOAPBOX, WP:NOTFREESPEECH and other relevant policy besides.

The underlying editorial question that SMC says inspired him to write this rant (specifically, that we cannot accommodate the use of idiosyncratic pronouns in Wikipedia's voice) is one in which my own perspectives align with his; in fact, I've advanced the same argument on policy talk pages myself, more than once. But the way he went about expressing his frustration on the underlying editorial question via this essay was inelegant, unfunny, and ineffective. More to the point, it was certain from the start to eventually create exactly the confusion and resulting disruption which has now arise. And if SMC doesn't understand 1) why this particular effort here was doomed to create offense, 2) how he conflated two entirely separate issues by going the route of a sarcastic diatribe, or 3) (and most importantly) why the language he used would be perceived as being more or less identical to the same kind of bigoted arguments trans people face virtually every day of their lives, then frankly this is closest I've ever seen this particular editor (whom I consider an asset to the project generally) get to displaying a question of competency. This is not funny. It is not useful. It is certain to give offense and create disruption as long as it remains, even if that was not (as I trust was the case) the author's intention to do so. It needs to go. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:18, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Snow, I am pretty sure they were just being too polite to mention it, but Wanda uses they/them pronouns according to their latest signature. I, too, was confused about that considering the name "Wanda," but you know.. their choice. ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 01:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Ah, thanks for the heads up. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks, MJL. (For the curious, my username was inspired by the androgynous protagonist of Shadow of the Colossus, whose name, Wander, is sometimes transliterated as Wanda.) WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 06:12, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete history and replace with apology (was Delete) Seems to fall under WP:POLEMIC as noted in the nomination. Regarding arguments that POLEMIC only applies to user pages, note that WP:PRJC links to the guideline that includes POLEMIC strongly suggesting that user space concerns can also be considered for project space. In regards to WP:NOTCENSORED this only applies to article pages and media such as images. PaleAqua ( talk) 07:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  "Only applies to userspace" would be bogus argument (as any MfD regular will tell you), but POLEMIC does in fact only apply to material "unrelated to Wikipedia"; that entire section does.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:08, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Looking through all the Wikipedia namespace MfDs that link to POLEMIC not sure I'm seeing that. I did see one invocation of WP:POLEMIC where the page ended up userified Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Verbage. Granted I only searched for links to WP:POLEMIC with the "Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:" prefix and not unlinked forms of "POLEMIC" so might have missed a few. PaleAqua ( talk) 09:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Updating to support replacing with apology per Ivanvector comment below, assuming Barbara is okay with that. I believe Barbara made an honest mistake here. PaleAqua ( talk) 17:37, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep blanked This has generated so much more heat than light, such that the underlying point of the piece does not appear to be coming across. While I AGF that the author did not intend to cause mass-offence, I also AGF in that the masses of people here and on the other pages genuinely found it offensive and inappropriate. I think the blanking probably goes far enough, as a sort of middle ground between WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:NOTFREESPEECH (or the principles behind them, to be pedantic about namespace applicability), and to ensure the talk page is kept as a kind of "documentation" of the incident directly accessible from that Signpost issue. - Evad37 [ talk 08:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  You know about {{ G8-exempt}}, do you not? It is unnecessary to keep the essay in order to keep the talk page. wumbolo ^^^ 09:06, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Yeah, but it would basically be meaningless noise if no one were able to examine the material.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:20, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  If endless drama can't be produced from meaningless noise, I'm happy with this being meaningless noise. If an editor needs a copy of the article for purposes other than creating drama, an admin will be free to provide a copy of it. wumbolo ^^^ 09:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  That doesn't make sense. If this debate and (importantly) exactly what led to it cannot be understood, then a repeat becomes much more likely (i.e., endless drama becomes much more likely). If it's not totally hidden, then the archive will have the intended effect and forestall similar drama in the future. If it were totally deleted, no admin would ever provide a copy upon request, because admins cannot read minds and thus have no reason to believe the request is for "purposes other than creating drama", and a strong incentive to assume the exact opposite.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep. Clearly satire. Not trans specific - non-standard pronoun choice has become a social liberty that tracends well past the trans community (including cisgender straight people). If the Signpost wants to retract - that is up to them. Icewhiz ( talk) 11:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete this dumpster fire per nominator's rationale.  — Scott • talk 14:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep but keep blanked: I'm surprised to find myself here given I agree with just about every person who has commented in favour of deletion and almost none who have commented in favour of keep. And yet I think it's important that people should be able to read these discussions later and know the full context of what the original Signpost piece said. The page has been blanked so this is no longer an issue of The Signpost still endorsing the page or of transphobia without content warnings being presented. Leave the dogshit alongside the fallout so people know: this is what was said and this is why Wikipedia will not condone it. I'm agreed with the majority that the article is trash and greatly respect the points made by Jayron32, Alfie, GRuban, GreenLipstickLesbian and many others. But here's the action I want to be taken: The Signpost should publish a retraction and an apology and SMcCandlish should be disallowed from contributing to the paper in future. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 14:33, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thoughtcrime! I think that SMcCandlish guy should also be castrated to prevent his wickedness from spreading to another generation. Seriously, you don't seem to understand how this worked. I wrote a userspace essay, which I think a grand total of maybe 5 people read, still in a draft state, really. A year or two later, someone asked to re-use it in a humor column, in an e-newsletter I don't pay any attention to. I had misgivings that someone might take it the wrong way, but relented. I didn't write this for Signpost (or write anything else for Signpost).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:10, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  "Unmanning" imagery is probably not the best choice given the larger context. Since I'm here I'll just inject:

  • I agree these silly made-up pronouns have no place in articles
  • I didn't find the piece at all amusing, sorry
  • I know you meant no offense – it's not "hateful", just severely tin-eared
  • It should not be deleted – keep the essay and the discussion
  • I'm sick of Fae's militant policing, and his talk of involving WMF legal was just ridiculous.

  E Eng 22:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  A note that Fæ prefers to be referred to with a singular they on Wikipedia, according to their user page. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 00:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Ask me if I care. E Eng 13:26, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Alright: do you care? Antagonistically referring to a person as a gender they don't identify as violates Wikipedia:No personal attacks. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 22:43, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm not sure if EEng's use of "he" here is "antagonistic", your statement may violate WP:AGF. Semi Hyper cube 23:34, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I was assuming good faith when I left a note about Fæ's pronouns. I was then taken aback by EEng's surprisingly hostile response. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 23:51, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  SemiH is correct: I did not refer to Fae as he antagonistically. It might be antagonistic if I remembered his preferred pronoun and intentionally used something else, but I didn't remember (never knew, I believe) so intentionality don't come into it. As explained elsewhere in this thread I will not be griefed into investing part of my limited brainpower in remembering various people's preferred pronouns, nor my limited time on this earth interrupting what I'm doing to look them up; nor will I wear out my fingers inserting {{gender:MJL|he|she|they}} in my posts. I will, instead, redouble my efforts to use singular they instead of generic he.

  I'm sorry if you found yourself in the crossfire, WW, but I've had way more than my fill of Fae and their queerer-than-thou attitude. See the green collapse box halfway down the discussion at WT:WikiProject_LGBT_studies/Archive_60#Use_of_word_"poofs"_on_user_talkpage. In fact, let me quote myself (addressing Fae) from that collapse box:

  grow some backbone, get a sense of proportion, and refocus your energy on things that really matter, like actual hatred emanating from actually hateful people

  ... and (ditto) a few posts down:

  We're not hostages to your personal worldview. I was making a serious point, and your incomprehension is not a license to suppress. And you've got a fucking lot of nerve taking it upon yourself to label my post as deliberately offensive. Really. You need to get out and around in the project more. This isn't your "safe space".

  E Eng 01:15, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm sorry if you found yourself in the crossfire, WW I appreciate that. Regarding pronouns: I understand that everyone makes mistakes (including me). I don't consider an accidental misgendering hostile but, by the same token, a polite correction about pronouns is not hostile, either. :) WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 02:38, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  It was your misfortune to be making the correction on behalf of an editor I consider a tiresome scold. E Eng 04:44, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  There's no reason EEng should care. Go ahead, call me he even though I've been clear that I actually am she, see how much I care. I don't. I'm not a freaking neurotic compelled to bully people who won't cave into my demands for special considerations. – Athaenara ✉ 00:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm not trying to punish you. You knew full well the social context in which the essay you wrote exists, you have all the available information to what the Signpost is at your disposal and you were aware of your actions at all stages. Your refusal to apologise at any step or take accountability for the words you wrote makes you unfit to be a contributor to the publication. As you agree, The Signpost is in project space and so "arguably has a collective editorial oversight rationale". Its articles shouldn't be written by someone who doesn't retract their article when they learn of the strong backlash it had and the hurt it caused. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 00:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I fully concur with Bilorv, but their suggested punishment (" publish a retraction and an apology" and " disallowed from contributing to the paper") is woefully insufficient. Such scum as SMcCandlish must be drawn and quartered pour encourager les autres. ^FBDB — JFG ^talk 09:13, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Don't forget to scatter my quarters to the four ends of the earth. This will both serve as distantly separated warnings to les autres, and prevent my evil from coalescing again to reanimate as a lich/revenant.

  @ Bilorv:: disagreeing with you is simply disagreeing with you; it's not a wrong I'm engaging in, and I decline to be castigated for it. Being aware that the material was iffy and would likely offend someone somewhere did not require its suppression or self-suppression (though Signpost was a bad idea, we all agree). However, you're simply making false assumptions/claims about refusal to ack my own responsibility. See for example both of my long replies at User talk:SMcCandlish#Pronouns (especially paragraphs beginning "I am bummed that ..." and "At any rate, I have not denied any responsibility ...". You won't like every single word of these posts, because I continue to correct false allegations of transphobia; but kowtowing to your sensitivities in particular is no duty of mine.

  What I will not do is play kiss-ass with people maligning me at a personal level or going out of their way to fabricate "meanings" in the material that are not present. There's a big difference between "This offended me because [a reasonable inference]" or "You offended me because [observation about judgement]", versus either "This is offensive because [an implication that is not actually present]" or "You are offensive because [motive someone is making up out of their ass]". Your punitive suggestion to topic-ban me from Signpost would never be taken seriously by more than a tiny handful of editors all from the same activistic camp, and it's just petty and mean-spirited. "Two wrongs don't make a right", etc.
   —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  "I'm sorry you were offended because you didn't understand what I said" is not an apology. And it's also not an acceptance of responsibility for what you wrote. What people are interpreting is a reasonable inference. That's the fallacy in your argument. I'm not asking anyone to kowtow to my sensitivities, heaven forbid. I'm simply expressing my opinion on what should happen, which I'm entitled to do even if that opinion is unpopular. I'm not asking for something punitive, but something preventative, since you've learned nothing from this incident and I see absolutely no sign that you wouldn't publish something similarly against the community's wishes in the future, were you approached to have your views published in The Signpost again. — Bilorv (he/him) _(talk) 11:18, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Thanks for confirming that you're out for a pound of flesh and indefinitely assuming bad faith. Fortunately, topic-bans don't work the way you fantasize they should. Not that I have any interest in writing for Signpost anyway. There is no fallacy in my argument. Drawing a reasonable inference, in your own private thoughts, and expressing it in "This is offensive because [an implication that is not actually present]" form isn't presenting a reasonable inference; no one's a mind-reader, so there's no way to even get at the alleged reasonable inference until the thinker actually expresses it. You also don't speak for the community, and opinions on this MfD are quite diverse despite all the selective and non-neutrally worded canvassing. (That said, I'm already on record as being in the blank-it camp, because it being in Signpost was a poor idea.) PS: Here's a great example of how to do it right, and I would say that even if it were for delete (I'm surprised it's not, given it's opinion of the piece's tone and merits or lack thereof): [6].  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:54, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep but keep blanked with a retraction/apology I came here to vote plain delete but User:Bilorv got in just before I hit edit, and I think theirs is the best solution. Maybe it wasn't "intended to marginalize and disparage transgender, nonbinary or genderqueer readers and Wikipedians." but a lot of people see it as marginalizing and disparaging. I don't think that was intended, but whatever the intent was it misfired. It's embarrassing at best. As for WP:NOTCENSORED, I don't see that as applying here anymore than it does to userpages, etc. Why would we allow material that is offensive to a large number of people, and as USer:Drmies said "makes fun of people whose gender identities in many cases are already problematic enough, and may cost them their lives,", to remain? Because some find it funny? I've had enough experience in the American deep South, including at Selma with King, to know that some people find some pretty horrible things funny. Humor, satire, etc are in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes read this as neither. Yes, the Signpost should be censored at times. Doug Weller talk 14:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. The Signpost is a peculiar beast, but whatever brief it has for publishing humorous essays, it doesn't stretch to this kind of gratuitous nastiness masquerading as satire. Yngvadottir ( talk) 18:13, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep but blanked with retraction and apology' As with some others, I was originally going to support delete, for the many thoughtful reasons others have expressed more eloquently. The signpost should not be a place for this nastiness, and the community obviously has the power to put an end to it. NOTCENSORED has never meant people in the community are allowed to cause unnecessary harm to others or disrupt relations within the community via internal commentary, especially not that intended to to represent that same community. This may not have been the intention of those involved, but it's clear that it is doing so, and sadder, they still don't understand why. But ultimately, as I read and the more I thought about it, I too came around to the idea it would be better to leave this be for anyone who wants to see what it's all about etc. Yes there are going to be many copies elsewhere I'm sure, but there's no reason we should make it so people have to go elsewhere to see what it's all about. The harm that keeping this around doesn't seem to outweigh the benefit of doing so. Ultimately what's done is done, and there are better ways to acknowledge the major error and wrong of this than deletion. I admit though, I'm not sure whether it's worth wasting our time if people say we have to actually change our policies or guidelines to allow the community to mark this as such assuming those said to have the power to do so don't want to, so I would support delete if it's too much work to blank, retract and make it an apology. Nil Einne ( talk) 18:49, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Forgot to say, I'm very uncomfortable with the way people often have to pay such a high cost for one mistake in modern social media culture, and would support delete in terms of the harm caused by keeping outweigh the benefit if those involved had wanted delete. But they don't so it's their choice. Nil Einne ( talk) 18:56, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I'm not afeared of being held long-term responsible for something that pissed off a bunch of people. I've mostly abandoned social media, anyway. It's more important the debate record make some kind of sense, with the content still visible through some channel for examination, than to cover my own ass.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Well abandoning social media may be of limited help when you appear in news papers and people call your work, home etc which is part of modern social media culture, as unfortunately many people have found out. I mean even if people are personally unaffected, it can take a major toll on families etc, especially children. (I'm not really thinking of wikipedia here, but plenty of other horror stories.) Nil Einne ( talk) 17:00, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  While I'd still support delete if the amount of work to get this withdrawn and retracted with an apology, I now believe it's unlikely to be necessary. The relevant guidelines e.g. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Coordination don't seem to clearly establish any clear process for independence from community norms, nor for that matter any structured process for appointment of parties responsible for the signpost. Even those guidelines such as they exist don't seem to have gone through an extensive community lead process which to be fair applies to a lot of old guidelines and doesn't mean we can change then willy nilly, but still makes the process of changing them IMO less fraught. This MFC could be advertised on the relevant guidelines pages if necessary, while an RFC may be more ideal it seems unnecessary anyway. Ultimately, there's no reason why the community can't choose to retract, withdraw and apologise for this piece. I mean if absolutely necessary, someone could step up with the blessing of this MFD to be a editor to deal with concerns over content which violates the community norms on the signpost. Note to be clear, I'd support a delete over keeping this without some indication it was wrong. I'm not saying we have to go very far though, for example the current "This column has been blanked because, in retrospect, it failed to make its intended point, while causing pain to other editors. The text is available in the page history." is probably good enough. Nil Einne ( talk) 10:06, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I concur with all of that (not having any editorial control over Signpost myself, and regretting my assent to putting this userspace piece in it), other than "pain" should be changed to something less hyperbolic, like the straightforward "offense".  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep - This is a volatile, thorny issue in our society generally and will only become more prominent over time. Hiding from the intense disagreement serves no one. In fact, passionate and often articulate debates like this one could serve to move the conversation forward by educating and enlightening people who really want to understand both sides.

That's my answer to the MfD question. In terms of moving forward, I received some exceptionally helpful advice from one of my mentors (a retired USMC officer):

When you feel really pissed off with the "idiots who just don't get it!", you have a choice: One, you can berate, hassle, ridicule, and turn others against the idiot; or, two, you can Seek first to understand than be understood. It sounds crazy--I thought it was--but damned if it doesn't make a big difference, even with asshole generals who are complete idiots. (Grinning as he said that last bit).

Yeah, I know that's Habit #5 from Covey's 7 Habits book, but he told me this when I was a young man (and before the book was published) and it has had a huge impact--especially when I feel rage about a horrible person or group and I'm thinking that this new-agey psychobabble bs is stupid.

A little personal background: I grew up in the 60s & 70s a terrified gay boy; one of my daughters has had the same girlfriend since adolescence and openly identifies as pansexual; and I have a beautiful, courageous trans niece.

My take on the Signpost column: I believe the Signpost article, although very unlikely meant to hurt others, is hurtful and displays a lack of empathy for transfolk and others marginalized, oppressed, and murdered for millenia. And, at the same time,there is an important argument to be made about how, when, and how rapidly we should alter fundamental components of our language(s). Making that point is what first threw the spotlight on Jordan Peterson (a more compassionate and thoughtful man than many people are willing to see) and led to more media coverage of "pronoun issue" as it is often referred to (inadequately).   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

This articulates very nicely how I feel about this whole MfD and how I feel about how the relevant parties are responding to this drama. The Signpost article, although very unlikely meant to hurt others, is hurtful and displays a lack of empathy and Hiding from the intense disagreement serves no one; I agree. I very much doubt that SMcCandlish and Barbara (WVS) intended to be hurtful with this piece of satire, but the doubling down in response to the not-insignificant amount of criticism doesn't seem like the best line of play in my view. -- Ununseti ( talk) 04:54, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Ununseti: Some people stand on principles (like not being subjected to nasty, false accusations) they consider more important than WP:WINNING. I don't plea-bargain. I've addressed your (and others') "doubling down" insinuations (among other more serious problems, not yours that I know of) under separate cover.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I thank Markworthen for the thoughtful and calm response, and would say that even if it were favoring deletion. I don't disagree with your criticisms of the piece, and it's nice to not be accused of being a transphobe by someone presenting the critique.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:12, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Plainly disruptive and harmful to members of the WP community. A collective decision to reject it and delete the page as not acceptable material for WP to host would begin to repair that harm. Speaking for myself, perhaps the most painful part was that I wasn't surprised at all to find something like this (although I was surprised by the author). Let's please take this as a chance to start to do better. Innisfree987 ( talk) 20:38, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep. Thought police can go to Meta. Only in death does duty end ( talk) 21:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Completely inappropriate anywhere on Wikipedia. We do not simply blank this type of attack page; we delete it entirely with a very stern warning to its authors. Signpost is no different from any other Wikipedia page; extremely offensive content is subject to removal and revdel regardless of where it appears, even if ithe removal makes subsequent comments nonsensical. – dlthewave ☎ 21:35, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep Honestly I see nothing wrong with it. I see no legitimate reason beyond personal opinion and WP:IDONTLIKEIT for deletion. The C of E God Save the Queen! ( talk) 22:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• FWIW; I'll bet my last wooden nickle that the first "pesky pronoun" nearly every child born in an English speaking country was called is it (probably not capitalized). My generation, born before ultrasound technology, were often announced on something blue or pink (often wrapped around a repugnant cigar) that stated: It's a Boy or It's a Girl respectively. Yesterday, as correct as we thought we'd become in our speech, it's (that's it was BTW) absolutely common for people with good intentions to ask: do you know if it's a boy or girl? It's a crying shame that we can't laugh at how ignorant our forefathersfolk were as we celebrate how enlightened we have finally become. As an aside, since we've outgrown our draconian censorship policy in wisdom newly found, wouldn't it be a good idea to also refactor sourced quotations to remove the hurtful things some ignoramus from the past may have actually said? After all, AWB can get it done pretty gall darn fast. I think that we should, but in case this ends up being the second time I've been wrong in life (I once thought I was wrong but turned out to be right) then keep this humorousless satire for future generations to enjoymock.-- John Cline ( talk) 23:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - transphobic bigots get the fuck out of Wikipedia. Per the sentiments expressed at WP:NOFUCKINGNAZIS. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 23:19, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I knew them Nazis couldn't fuck.-- John Cline ( talk) 23:30, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Au contraire. E Eng 00:05, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete. This is outright transphobic. ~ Rob₁₃ ^Talk 23:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Keep, retract, and protect This is unprofessional. I'm for free speech, but I'm also non-binary and don't appreciate this sad attempt at humor made at my expense. Take it elsewhere (but not Uncyclopedia, please, as I am an editor there as well). Qzekrom ( talk) 23:44, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • Addendum: I think NOTCENSORED is a great policy. However, WP:NPOV permits us to describe offensive views but not endorse them. Qzekrom ( talk) 00:25, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
    • NPOV doesn't apply to essays, or we'd have to delete every essay that isn't a technical {{ How-to}} or {{ Information page}}.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Some points.
  1. If the Signpost is to remain an engaging and relevant publication, it must have a wide degree of freedom, including the freedom to publish unpopular and provocative opinions. (This is not a free pass to be as offensive as they like).
  2. SMcCandlish has consistently maintained that the article was a satirical piece about MOS:IDENTITY, and not intended to be transphobic. In my view, there is no reason to doubt this.
  3. SMcCandlish took steps to clarify his intent by including an "in a nutshell" box. Additionally, he consulted with Bri, Signpost editor-in-chief, to ensure the piece was suitable for publication.
  4. Satire, by its nature, is a controversial form of humour which can frequently offend. This, of course, does not forbid its use in the Signpost, but it is best used with care and with efforts to keep offensiveness to the minimum required to make an effective point.
  5. Gender-related issues are a sensitive topic and best discussed with care. Gender-related satire is especially likely to offend and is best used with care or avoided altogether. This, of course, does not forbid its use in the Signpost.
  6. When released, the piece was received by many as transphobic and offensive, including several non-binary editors.
  7. In the deletion rationale, Fae claims the piece violated WP:POLEMIC, WP:HA, the WMF Non-discrimination policy and the WMF Terms of Use (presumably referring to Section 4 forbidding “engaging in harassment”). In my view, none of these policies have been violated.
  8. WP:POLEMIC only refers to writings unrelated to Wikipedia.
  9. WP:HA requires intent to constitute harassment. As per point 2, I don’t believe the intent was there. By the same reasoning, the Terms of Use have not been violated.
  10. The WMF Non-discrimination policy forbids discrimination on the basis of gender identity. This piece may have been offensive to non-binary people, but it did not discriminate against them.
  11. Finding something offensive is not, in itself, a valid reason for deletion. However, it may be indicative of a valid reason for deletion and is definitely a valid reason for criticism.
  12. Per 7-10, there is no valid deletion rationale. However, this does not exempt the Signpost and SMcCandlish from criticism and does not mean the piece could not be kept but blanked.
  13. SMcCandlish has expressed regret on his talk page that the piece was not fully developed to clarify his intent.
  14. As many have pointed out, there were less offensive ways to write this piece than clumsy satire.
  15. I believe having the piece kept but blanked is in everyone’s interests. The piece clearly failed to communicate and support its intended point, and did not reflect the author’s intent, so SMcCandlish and the Signpost should be happy with blanking. The many editors who found the piece offensive should also be happy with blanking.
  16. It is at the Signpost’s discretion whether to retract and/or issue an apology. In my view, the editors should have recognised the offensiveness of this piece, foreseen the backlash and modified it before publication at the very least. Not doing so was downright reckless.
  17. Best of luck to the closer.
  18. TL;DR: No policies violated, but keep blanked. – Tera tix ₵ 01:19, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Teratix Concerning #16, why would the Signpost have discretion to handle this as they see fit? Is their content somehow not subject to Wikipedia's normal community consensus procedures, including deletion? – dlthewave ☎ 03:26, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The Signpost editorial team has discretion to issue a meaningful apology or retraction (i.e. if they are forced to apologise or retract the piece that is not a meaningful apology), and I would strongly encourage them to do so. The community, of course, has discretion over whether to keep/delete the piece if it violates policy. – Tera tix ₵ 05:53, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The community can issue a retraction and apology. There's no reason why the signpost editorial team needs to do so. Every page belongs to the community except for those claimed (for lack of better word) by the WMF, so we are effectively responsible for the content. Nil Einne ( talk) 09:44, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  The Signpost editorial team and SMcCandlish approved and wrote the content respectively, so any effective retraction should come from them. I suppose the community could technically issue a retraction, but it's not particularly effective if the original publishers don't endorse it. – Tera tix ₵ 10:41, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Well it still serves the purpose namely to emphasise the community and presented to the world at large. If those involved don't want to retract, that's up to them. We could end their involvement if we desire, but I don't think we have go that far. It's perfectly fine for the community to say "no, this doesn't represent even though it was published in a space that does, sorry for any harm and offense caused" without those involved doing so. If this was something in user space, or somewhere else where it wasn't purporting to represent the community things may be different. I mean even a normal wikipedia page wouldn't be so bad, since e.g. normal essays only purport to represent certain editors unlike the signpost which is explicitly sold and allowed by us as our newspaper. Nil Einne ( talk) 16:55, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I think this is a good assessment that comprehensively lays out the premise and hidden assumptions of the current situation. (You think like a lawyer.) I personally don't believe any policies were violated, but I do think that it would be a mistake to leave the article up in its original form. I agree that blanking ought to be in everyone's best interest. I also would encourage the Signpost to issue some kind of apology regarding this matter; I think it'd be rather difficult to write something that doesn't anger somebody, but they should be careful to avoid saying something that sounds like a non-sincere non-apology or, at the other extreme, something overly the top apologetic that throws the writers under the bus and sounds like they're just caving to public pressure. -- Ununseti ( talk) 08:49, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Twitterfy this page - Short of the death threats, this thread would give the Covington fiasco a run for its money on overblown rhetoric alone. I think a trip to Goli Otok – let's say for a decade? – would give some here a perspective on the words "repression" and "marginalization" – as would being LGBT anywhere that isn't "the West". What I've learned here is that the author(s) of the piece are Nazis (Ivanvector), disgusting and stupid (Praxidicae), truly sick (Cullen), and transphobic (various). That's ignoring the things said exclusively about the text. I've also learned that the English language is bigoted (Bradv) presumably because it doesn't provide for... an in(de)finite number of pronouns/identities. This is all rather banal stuff, but it does highlight, and this about the only point I agree with many of the above editors on, the lack of decency on Wikipedia. Decent people deal with offense and the offensive in a decent/humane manner. That is sorely lacking above. Typical of the internet. Mr rnddude ( talk) 08:53, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • as would being LGBT anywhere that isn't "the West" A few months ago I visited the Pulse memorial, where 49 people in an LGBT nightclub were murdered, in the West. Don't make glib comments like this, please. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 10:39, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
    • I'm not being glib. That is an entirely sincere comment. Highlighting a tragic event as though it is the norm is glib, that is to say, insincere and untruthful. Mr rnddude ( talk) 11:01, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
      • And hypocritical, given the general plight of LGBT people outside of liberal democracies – programmatic, systemic oppression and worse. Trying to dispel that with reference to very disproportionately rare homophobic violence (usually an individual action matter) in places like the US is such a false equivalence argument, like "Well, white people get discriminated against by minorities, too, you know."  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:14, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
        • I am aware that some places are better for LGBT folks than others, and so is everyone else. When you use this fact to blithely dismiss a minority group's valid concerns and struggles you are being glib and uncaring. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 11:21, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

          I don't recall addressing, let alone dismissing, any minority group's concerns. I think you've missed, or ignored, the central thrust of my comment which was about facing offense/the offensive with decency. That said, whatever "valid concerns and struggles" you have (I don't live in the U.S.), state repression is not one of them. Which was the point of the whole reference to Goli Otok, and LGBT people who don't live in the West, and also my suggestion that some of the above people spend a decade in a political prison infamous for forced labour before they start throwing words around like repression and marginalization in response to an essay. Mr rnddude ( talk) 12:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  • WP:NOT#FORUM has clearly been suspended on this page (and typically is any time people get miffed about a socio-political topic that is left of center – and I say that as someone left of center on most matters.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment I am aware this page has been deleted, but I feel strongly about this. Wikipedia is not the place for censorship, or your personal political beliefs. This is a piece of satire. Half of these comments are taking this article seriously. It is a JOKE. There is nothing wrong with this. He was not trying to insult the LGBT community. He was making a joke. There were numerous messages throughout the page that explicitly stated that it was satire. To address a comment above me, what does mass murder have to do with this? The shooter didn't even know that was a gay nightclub, and what does it have to do with Wikipedia? The writer is not a nazi, or a bigot. Instead of trying to handle this in a civil manner, you are freaking out, insulting the writer, and blowing this way out of proportion. That will not get you anywhere. If you want to have a civil discussion about this, I am fine, but just don't go to the point of calling him a nazi over a piece of satire. Almy ( talk) 15:35, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  " It's just a prank, bro" isn't a valid defense for anything. Intent aside, if a joke offends a significant portion of the Wikipedia community, it has no place in a community publication in the Wikipedia namespace. -- Ahecht ( TALK
  PAGE) 17:39, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  "There were numerous messages throughout the page that explicitly stated that it was satire." It isn't satire. It is a pathetic rehashing of a phenomena of which we are already too aware. If it satirizes anything, it satirizes itself. Bus stop ( talk) 18:00, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Delete Per WP:NOTFREESPEECH, WP:MFD, and the common sense of what a self-governing project is, it is more than reasonable for the Wikipedia community from time to time, to convene itself as in effect the final editorial board of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. We should take WP:MFD at its word that I as an editor, and we as editors, are free to determine a page is "undesirable" and should therefore be deleted. We are also free to draw analogy to other areas of WP:NOT on deletion of disruptive or unhelpful material, and to the perhaps unfortunately named but still valid, WP:NOTSTUPID, as grounds. In my own free exercise of editorial judgement, I deem it both prudent and within policy to voice, delete. Alanscottwalker ( talk) 16:13, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. Perhaps it was not intended this way, but this comes across as a mean-spirited attempt to mock the non-gender-binary and their attempts to create a more inclusive language for themselves. While I disagree with the idea of neopronouns (we should be uniting, not dividing, under singular they), this sort of thing creates a hostile editing environment and should not appear in the Wikipedia namespace as an official publication of Wikipedia. And then also courtesy-blank this discussion, for the same reason. — David Eppstein ( talk) 16:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete. 1) per Ivanvector's polemical and commendable !vote above. 2) per other more measured comments above (Ahecht, GorillaWarfare, Ladsgroup, DIYeditor, Chumash11, Bradv, Drmies, Snow Rise) and Cullen elsewhere. 3) there is nothing in WP:NOTCENSORED that suggests it applies outside of article space, and dozens of policies and guidelines and years of practice to suggest that it doesn't. (I tend to think NOTCENSORED is founded on an unhelpful conception of "censorship" anyway.) 4) arguments that take the form "don't read it if you find it offensive" (e.g. Guy Macon) strike me as misguided: the issue is that the Signpost a) is an outward-facing organ of the English Wikipedia community and ought not to contain material that that community finds egregious (see Bradv's comment of 03:57, 1 March), and b) plays a role in creating an atmosphere among contributors (including those of us who don't read it) and informing debates around what behaviours are and are not acceptable. This essay risks creating the impression that Wikipedia at best enjoys childish mockery of trans people, and at worst is actively hostile to trans people. 5) I don't see any benefit to blanking rather than deleting. If people want to keep a copy of the page they're free to do so. 6) This all feels somewhat beside the point – shouldn't we be discussing what the function of the Signpost is and whether it's contributing to the work of building and maintaining an encyclopaedia (or if it's even capable of doing so)? The discussion below on the question "is it a newspaper" seems equally irrelevant. At the very least I hope this discussion leads to rethinking the decision to force a link to the Signpost on to everybody's watchlist. –  Arms & Hearts ( talk) 18:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

In this context, polemicalis very seldom commendable. Qwirkle ( talk) 18:45, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep blanked. I agree this was a terrible idea and should not have been published, but it was. Yes, it's very offensive, but we should not pretend that it never happened. It should remain blanked and there should be a suitable warning so that its clear why it has been blanked, why it is offensive and that it is not endorsed, so that people will not accidentally stumble across it, but it should be available for the record. We should not be attempting to whitewash our history. Thryduulf ( talk) 21:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Blank From what I have read, it appears the author regrets that it was published on Signpost, and the community clearly does not appreciate its publication. Deleting it would prevent users other than admins from seeing the original text. Having it available only in the history serves some useful purpose in illustrating the sort of thing one shouldn't do. It also stands as a record, that the community can all read, of what the author and his supporters think is acceptable. As such it may prove useful in some future admin/arbcom discussion on those individuals.

As others have noted, this is an example of "punching down": satirising and mocking the weak and marginalised. Subsequent to the post I have read comments by the author and one or two of their strongest defenders that I consider even more offensive. Should they at some point come to their senses, then perhaps we should consider a courtesy deletion of the page and subsequent discussions. It is interesting that Don't be a dick explicitly mentions "show respect for others" and advises against "pointing out grammar issues". I wonder why?

I notice that a large number of people have cited WP:NOTCENSORED in defence of this Signpost article. WP:NOTCENSORED is contained in the Encyclopedic content sub section of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Whereas WP:NOTFREESPEECH and WP:BATTLEGROUND are part of the same policy but in the Community subheading. Which, do we think, "Signpost" comes under? -- Colin° ^Talk 22:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It also stands as a record, that the community can all read, of what the author and his supporters think is acceptable. As such it may prove useful in some future admin/arbcom discussion on those individuals. I see the Grand Inquisition is hard at work, congratulations! For the "record", I am not a "supporter" of anybody, be they the author of the offending piece, the Signpost editor who decided to give it some exposure, or the publisher who gave the final nod of approval. I am however an unapologetic supporter of WP:Old-fashioned Wikipedian values, two of them are being grossly violated all along this discussion: WP:Assume good faith and WP:No personal attacks. The repeated calls to pillory the author, to force an apology out of him, or to use this incident as a weapon in future proceedings, say a lot more about those who write them than about the imaginary bigotry of said author. For shame. — JFG ^talk 22:56, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

JFG I don't appreciate that under my post you highlight "repeated calls to pillory the author, to force an apology out of him". I don't think I, nor indeed most people, have done either of those; only a few have. You may also want to consider that taking what someone said and inflaming it, is also a good example of bad behaviour: your "use this incident as a weapon in future proceedings" comment does that. I tried to word to word that comment neutrally. All of our edits here remain in the history and are useful for discussion should someone face a review of this at a later date. Access to what was actually written, rather than some of the hyperbolic descriptions of it, is essential to a fair and honest process. Would you rather that all we had left was "transphobic hate speech", which is the impression one might get from reading some of the comments here, or that we, as non-admins, could make up our minds for ourselves? If this was deleted such that only admins could see it, it would be an impediment to justice (both defence and prosecution). Not a "weapon" at all. Facts are neutral, opinions are not. Let's not delete the facts and keep only opinions. That's my point. -- Colin° ^Talk 14:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Colin: I appreciate your thoughtful and measured response, and I admit that my message above was perhaps a bit excessive as it reflected my utter frustration at this whole discussion. The "calls to pillory the author and force an apology out of him" did not indeed emanate from you, but I have seen too many direct or veiled attacks on SMC's character, which in my opinion have gone way overboard. I totally agree that both the essay and the extensive discussion record should be preserved for future reference. I just wish the offended members of our community would not react as a lynching mob; that's the feeling I tried to convey, and I'm sorry that your previous message happened to be the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back", as it prompted me to express my global distaste for allegations of hate speech liberally dispensed in this thread. — JFG ^talk 02:14, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Forced "apologies" are bogus anyway. They're a form of theatre from public relations, and are not actual apologies, but a type of public shaming. WP doesn't do that; if the community considers someone to have transgressed against our policies and to not have learned from it, we institute a block or ban.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:07, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep blanked. Blanking was fine, damnatio memoriæ is not, if for no other reason then for the fact it enables creeping normalisation into real censorship. Daß  Wölf 22:32, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete and quite frankly I don't see how this was approved in the first place. This isn't something we ought to condone openly. Hiàn ( talk) 22:59, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Jesus H Christ. What is wrong with you people. Herostratus ( talk) 00:28, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete Wikipedia is not censored, but we don't have to host anti-trans drivel either. Get a youtube account and monetise it or whatever and keep it off here. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - I could write paragraphs on why this is wrong, offensive, and, if preserved, will go down as an infamous, repugnant episode in Wikipedia's history, over which the people responsible, and the Signpost itself, will have been irredeemably marred beyond any and all reproach. Instead, I'll simply endorse Ivanvector's eloquence. ~Swarm~ {talk} 06:58, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete - This whole incident reminds me of this storm in a teacup, in which I admitted to being not entirely heterosexual and occasionally fancying guys because I was upset about being accused of homophobia and such accusations hurt me more than those dishing them out probably realise. Anyway, like this incident here, it was a joke that was misinterpreted and people took offence at. I explained that I did not intend to offend, but I was sorry that people were and removed it to respect their wishes (though curiously the joke people took exception to has been sitting in the WT:LGBT archives for some time, which strikes me as a bit odd). Anyway, we should do the same here and just quietly get rid of this. It's not going to break the encyclopedia. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:55, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete I think we can all agree this was a terrible mistake - hence the blanking. Let's do everyone the courtesy of deleting it and trying to move on, rather than any continued defense and inevitable embarrassment on the part of those defending the (however unintentional) transphobic rubbish. PeterTheFourth ( talk) 11:06, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete and revdel the article, any drafts, &c, permanently block the authors, perhaps close down signpost. We do not need shitty attack pages like this on wikipedia. -- Tagishsimon ( talk) 11:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete per David Eppstein ( talk · contribs) above, who puts it eloquently and succinctly. I find myself in total agreement. WJBscribe (talk) 13:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep, because at face value and if one assumes good faith and accepts the claims of the author, it is inherently inoffensive, or at worst mild satire, and has been blown up out of all proportion for political purposes by assuming meanings that were not intended and are not obvious when taking it at face value. Deleting or blanking is pandering to the professionally/habitually offended - I will not claim paranoid as I am not a psychologist. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Interesting that you are willing to assume good faith in respect of the author, but not those who have said they were offended. WJBscribe (talk) 15:13, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I don't think anybody is saying anybody is lying about being offended; that would be an AGF failure. One point of dispute here is whether being offended is reasonable under these circumstances, and to state a view that it is not is not a failure to AGF. I think we can all agree that not all offense taken is reasonable, no? And reasonable people can disagree as to whether this offense is. There is no Absolute Objective Truth in this matter. ― Mandruss  ☎ 16:42, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Peter's claim that some editors are among "the professionally offended" strikes me as more or less equivalent to the claim that they are "lying about being offended". –  Arms & Hearts ( talk) 15:18, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  It's quite possible to exhibit the characteristic Peter described without acting in bad faith. I encourage any editor thinking of asserting AGF failure to first read the definition of good faith. It's very narrowly about honesty—not judgment, competence, reasonableness, rationality, or any of a number of other things one might opine about another besides "You're great! Go you!" ― Mandruss  ☎ 00:14, 7 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep and unblank it as a hysterical historical record of self-fulfilling satire. -- Netoholic @ 22:29, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete (or less optimally blank) as polemical. Not essential, not necessary, there is just no need for this stuff. At all. Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 23:19, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep blanked. The content is offensive and should not be visible on reader-facing pages. However, preserving the history is useful both for 1) documenting this incident, which has blown up quite a bit, for posterity; and 2) serving as a permanent reminder of what not to do; we should not hide from our mistakes. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:10, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Replace with Barbara's well-written apology here. While I would still prefer if the history were deleted, Barbara's apology serves as a suitable content warning. See Thryduulf's comment many lines above. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 16:29, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Oh, yes, of course presuming Barbara (WVS) is okay with her apology being republished for this purpose. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 17:46, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep As I said on the other MfD, we've kept far worse (e. g. User:JzG/Politics), and at least this page is humourous. If people are really offended, we could alternatively consider hiding it in a {{ collapse top}} template. L293D ( ☎ •  ✎) 20:17, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Delete for all of the obvious reasons already articulated by others, and the fact that it's not remotely funny. Hopefully the authors have learned a life lesson here. I wish I could say that I'm surprised to see some of the same kind of idiotic keep arguments as I did at the WP:Fag RfD. - Mr X 🖋 21:21, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Comment (my second go at this) I am grateful to the editorial board for retracting the piece. Per several of the comments above and Floquenbeam's note on the page, I believe the piece was well-intentioned but came off badly—"in retrospect, it failed to make its intended point, while causing pain to other editors." I also concur with Teratix's points, particularly (13) and (16), and I think the piece could have been improved per Writ Keeper's comments above, i.e. by focusing on "unusual trademark stylizations and excessive honorifics" instead of pronouns. I think SMC should have a do-over. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 05:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Qzekrom:, The Signpost didn't retract the piece. Floquenbeam blanked the page. We've yet to hear from the editor in chief, Bri who !voted Keep here, on the matter of retraction. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 10:55, 7 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Keep Personally not a big fan of the Signpost, but this seems entirely within their editorial discretion. Opinions and humour are allowed, and there's no reason to adopt some stringent political correctness standard. WP:NOTCENSORED means that Wikipedia is not a "safe space": Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍. Obviously there is no reason to intentionally be offensive, but that was not the case here, as the author has already explained, it was criticizing or discussing the adoption of new kinds of language constructs in Wikipedia. -- Pudeo ( talk) 08:52, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Keep and mark historical and move on already. Also all discussion should be located at Wikipedia talk:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour. CoolSkittle ( talk) 14:57, 7 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Tally

I know that only counting votes is bad, but guidelines around closing discussions does recommend that some weight is to be given towards the relative numbers. I voted and commented above, so I won't close, but I had some time to kill, so I thought I would help the actual closer by doing some quick tallies. This discussion has been open 7 days, and generated more text than any MFD I can remember, so it clearly has the input of a larger portion of the community than most of these kinds of discussions. The !votes above broke down into 5 basic types: Keep outright, Keep but blank or replace with apology/retraction, Blank or Delete (either), Delete outright, and Miscellaneous (where the intent of the !voter is unclear, or where they were clearly neutral). I didn't count miscellaneous votes in the tally, but here is my count for the other categories:

• Keep outright = 39
• Keep and blank = 22
• Delete OR blank = 10
• Delete outright = 57

I won't make further comment on this, but the future closer of this discussion may find these numbers useful in their assessment. -- Jayron 32 15:21, 7 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Extended discussion (refactored)

And since I'm making this header, I'll say that the above has only strengthened my view. Much of the above would be perfect for illustrating the definition of jeremiad. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 01:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It’d do pretty good for signal response, too, and that’s the real problem. When people’s brains stop working when they see certain words, trouble will follow, it’s only a question of how soon. Qwirkle ( talk) 02:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I recognize that your comment above is not another !vote but it still seems pretty shitty for you to take another opportunity to restate your own opinion here. ElKevbo ( talk) 03:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Autistic screeching Never mind, that's not a protected class on Wikipedia Someone eventually had to, and I figure the closer of this mess can appropriately weigh my comments. Besides, if a group of fundie Christians on Wikipedia claimed to be "offended" at... something... at the Signpost, I'm sure you'd support deletion of the "offensive" comment. Actually, I don't at all, I think there's enough cognitive dissonance that the majority of the community would be pissing their pants laughing that they "offended" the right people. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 05:57, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm as hardcore and anti-religion as it gets in my personal life, but if I saw a "humour" piece published in the Signpost that started with "I worship dead zombie jews, look at me I wear silly hats, let's rape some virgins lololololol", I'd be with the Christians asking for a retraction. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 07:29, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I endorse Headbomb's remark, with a caveat. That kind of mockery is utterly inappropriate on Wikipedia. At least in the hypothetical, the mockery is directed at a dominant ideology. In this case, the mockery is directed against one of the weakest and most marginalized and most persecuted groups in society worldwide. There is nothing more contemptible than punching down. Nothing. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I'll keep my Lenny Bruce. And the people this is actually commenting on, those who would force all kinds of neologisms onto Wikipedia, are all too often not the marginalized ones themselves. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 14:14, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• WP:General attacks. ~ R. T. G 15:54, 1 March 2019 (UTC) Laughter is a response to perceiving the ridiculous. Some laughter is said to have an expense. Wikipedia is free though. ~ R. T. G 00:24, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Retraction of "transphobic" claims: It's worth reporting here that the nominator, Fæ, has rescinded the claim that this piece was "transphobic" [7].  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:44, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Not to be a total phallus, here, but the diff provided retracts any allegation that those responsible for the essay are transphobic; I don't see where it suggests that the piece itself is not transphobic. Indeed, I would humbly submit that SMcCandlish's blunt denial of the innocuous posthumanist insight that texts, like other artefacts, can have impacts and affordances that are beyond the intentions of their creators - and that can be most elegantly discussed by attributing agency to the nonhuman - is a large part of how we have all arrived at the current drama. I read the piece carefully, and its opening reads as much as a satire directed at voluntary choices among "he, she and they" as it does an attack on neologisms, if not more so. Indeed, if the author is unaware that the first reaction of many actual transphobes when asked to "they" someone is to substitute "it" instead - well, that is a piece of information that an effective ironist in this particular discursive space ought to have known. Newimpartial ( talk) 17:10, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Is the Signpost a newspaper or only some internal stuff?

The Wikipedia article The Signpost describes the said Signpost as a newspaper for real, with a "newspaper" infobox, etc. etc. If this is true, then WP:Miscellany_for_deletion has nothing to say about this newspaper, the applicable rules being the laws about the publishing business. On the contrary, if the said Signpost is under the rule of WP:Miscellany_for_deletion, then it is not a newspaper and the WP article is only a pile of pompous assertions, that should be corrected. Pldx1 ( talk) 14:16, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Pldx1: It doesn't matter, because the Signpost is hosted on the English Wikipedia, regardless of whether or not it is considered a newspaper. The Wikimedia Foundation ultimately has control over its own servers; and presumably, since the English Wikipedia community is mostly self-governed, the Signpost may be subject to the community's policies and guidelines by virtue of being part of the English Wikipedia. Jc86035 ( talk) 14:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The Signpost's well-sourced article defines it as a newspaper in the first sentence. Newspapers are almost always editorially independent of their umbrella ownership, and this seems further proof that the first amendment principles should apply. Overlapping with WP:CENSOR, there doesn't seem any other way to close this than keep, and maybe at that point the author will think about withdrawing the page, which he has indicated he may do. But no blame, shame, or finger pointing should be shown anyone here, everyone seems to be acting in good faith. The author has described his viewpoint very well, and reading the article once again from that viewpoint makes sense. Pointofviewist comments on all sides seem heartfelt, as they should, but another point of view sees the first amendment as real which means, as mentioned above, that Signpost articles can't be subject to Wikipedia's deletion process. Randy Kryn ( talk) 16:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Since Wikipedia has no "higher court" for most issues, arguments of illegitimacy are never successful unless a majority are swayed by them. No closer is going to close against the numbers on the basis of this argument. I think it's unfortunate that under our system all editors are simultaneously advocates and judges (see conflict of interest), but it is what it is. ― Mandruss  ☎ 19:05, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

There is almost no issue at Wikipedia ever for which "there is no other way to close this" can be played as a trump card designed to short circuit discussion. In the case of this discussion, we have two completely valid and completely policy-based positions which are under discussion, and we'll see which way consensus goes. In the case of this discussion, those two policy-based positions center around WP:CENSOR and related policies on one side and WMF:Non-discrimination policy on the other. What people need to come to terms with is whether it is more important that out language is inclusive and non-discriminatory or whether our language is free and open. There is a natural tension there, and neither policy "wins". There is a continuum here, and people have to decide where in the great broad middle between "we should allow all speech, including hurtful, bigoted, and harassing speech" and "we should only allow a set list of things to be said, and should delete anything not on that list". It isn't helpful to characterize the other position (than one's own) as being only at one of those extremes. Instead, people here are trying to find where, in the nuanced tension between allowing all people to feel welcome and allowing all people to express themselves without fear of reprisal. Saying "this can only go one way, because I found this one policy here" ignores all of the other policies in tension with that one. There are no trump cards at Wikipedia. There is only discussion and consensus building. -- Jayron 32 19:54, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Actually all a closer has to do is read The Signpost article, determine if Wikipedia recognizes it as a notable on-line newspaper, then apply first amendment principles to it and find that no The Signpost article can be deleted under "Misc. for deletion" parameters. That and/or take WP:CENSOR at its word. Randy Kryn ( talk) 19:47, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

One could just as easily say "all the closer had to do is...take WMF:Non-discrimination policy at its word". Furthermore, your lack of understanding of what the First Amendment to the U.S. Consitution means seriously undermines your argument here. It doesn't mean that an organization is forced to publish all writing submitted to it. It only means that the government cannot stop said organization from publishing that information if they choose to. In this case, it doesn't require that editorial decisions at Wikipedia cannot be made ever; that Wikipedia is bound to publish every proposed bit of writing that comes its way. We (the community writ large) are the editorial decision makers for what goes on here at the Wikipedia, and we're allowed (as a community) to decide whether we should or should not allow some writing here. The First Amendment has nothing to do with that. Editorial decisions by organizations such as Wikipedia have nothing at all to do with the First Amendment. Invoking it here doesn't help your position, it undermines it because it shows you don't know what you're talking about. Making statements that cast doubts as to your own competence undermines any potentially valid points you may have to make. -- Jayron 32 19:54, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I would argue that virtually all editors will deem more important the policy that supports their position, which arises from personal viewpoints independent from policy. We decide what we want, and then we go find policy to support it, rather than the reverse. And policy is sufficiently rich to support A or !A for virtually any proposition. Way meta of course, but let me know when there is any community will to confront these foundational issues and I'll go there. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:09, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Regardless of whether the positions define the policies, or the policies define the positions, the tension is real, and the discussion and consensus building is vital, towards reaching a community decision.-- Jayron 32 20:52, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Democratic voting with a lot of policy window dressing per WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. ― Mandruss  ☎ 20:57, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Either the process is legitimate (even with its flaws) and you participate in it, or it isn't and you propose a different process that would be legitimate and let's all do that. If you're not interested in doing either, in what way are you being useful?-- Jayron 32 21:03, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I put out feelers from time to time (say twice a year), and there is never any traction at all. There is a strong tendency to defend status quo for even the most trivial issue, let alone something huge like this. I know when such a proposal would be a waste of my time. That doesn't mean I zip it 100% of the time, and there's just a chance that I might get a few people to think on such things in their sleep. That would be more "useful" than helping decide whether a humor page stays or goes, in my view. Anyway, I have "participated in it". ― Mandruss  ☎ 21:12, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Fair enough. -- Jayron 32 21:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The Signpost is either a newspaper or it isn't. I'm going by its Wikipedia page that calls it an online newspaper. In that case, at least in the U.S., the editors have the right to decide what is printed or not printed in their publication. We, as Wikipedia editors, can advise but should we have the power to delete? That is what I mean by the first amendment right to free press, and, as I've said elsewhere, if Freedom of the Press doesn't apply here legally it at least applies here in spirit. Randy Kryn ( talk) 20:20, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It's a perfectly legitimate position to claim that the Signpost should be treated as a safe space to write provocative things, and then to come up with reasons why that should be so. The US Constitution has absolutely nothing to do with it, at all. Nothing. Stop going down that road, and find other ways to defend your position. Your position is defensible, just not by invoking that.-- Jayron 32 20:56, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The closer isn't the United States Congress, nor are their poweres granted by Congress, so the First Admendment says absolutely nothing about whether the closer can accurately judge whether or not the Wikipedia community feels that certain content is appropriate to host or not. There is no automatic right to publication granted by the Bill of Rights just because something is considered a newspaper. -- Ahecht ( TALK
PAGE) 20:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I partly come from a journalistic background, and in journalism the publisher isn't responsible for the contents of the newspaper, the named editors of the publication decide what is or is not included. If The Signpost is to remain a reputable online newspaper it cannot be censored by this community, which adheres to different rules than traditional newspaper independence. Randy Kryn ( talk) 21:14, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

If the Signpost is a "reputable online newspaper"--I'm skeptical of that claim to say the least, but I digress--such that isn't subject to Wikipedia policy, then Wikipedia has no obligation, and certainly no First Amendment obligation, to host the publication on its own server space. The Signpost is free to publish its content by printing it out and distributing it on paper if it wishes, but while it's published on Wikipedia's server space, it'll need to play by Wikipedia's rules. Deleting the Signpost page isn't violating its First Amendment right to free press for exactly the same reason that deleting someone's user page doesn't violate their First Amendment right to free speech. Writ Keeper  ⚇ ♔ 21:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Raising your point does not need a subtitle. The nomination includes WP:Harassment, WMF:Non-discrimination policy and WMF:Terms of Use, all apply to Signpost pages and Signpost contributors without exception. -- Fæ ( talk) 18:25, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

note: I moved the section here from intermingled among !votes. Having discussions intermingled with the votes was making the thread unreadable. power~enwiki ( π, ν) 18:27, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

There's no legal free-speech argument to be made here. Even an in-principle one for freedom-of-press is rather weak, since this is a house organ. However, outright deletion is a poor idea because Signpost is a publication, and this would tear out a page of it, and make all the debate about it meaningless for later editors. Those convinced that Signpost should not have run this (I lean toward agreement with them, despite having written this as a userspace essay) are doing their viewpoint a major disservice by demanding actual deletion. Their point is that this shouldn't have happened and this should not happen again, but no one later will have any idea what "this" refers to. Collapse-boxing it, or maybe blanking it so it can only be read in page history, is a much more sensible solution, assuming a consensus is even reached to go that far. Someone else noted above that a from a policy-analysis viewpoint, keep is the leading option, because most of the deletion rationales are invalid WP:IDONTLIKEIT stuff. E.g., WP:POLEMIC and the entire section that contains it only pertains to material "unrelated to Wikipedia", which obviously does not describe a piece (even a very silly one) about writing Wikipedia. Blanking it wouldn't be deletion, so the policy threshold for going that route is much lower.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Could somebody clarify the role of the Signpost editor within our community, who chose them and who authorized them to use Wikipedia to publish a newspaper? Newspapers do in fact retract articles and even opinion pieces by removing them from their websites. Although newspaper editors are given some level of discretion, many newspapers would choose not to continue to employ an editor who published this sort of thing. – dlthewave ☎ 21:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply
  • @ Dlthewave: See WP:POST/ABOUT and WP:POST/COORD#Editor-in-Chief. EICs are self-selected volunteers, who generally keep the "job" until they decide they don't want to do it anymore – and if nobody else steps up, then the Signpost effectively ceases publication (which was the case for part of 2017). There is no authorisation, because for the most part that's not how Wikipedia works ( WP:BOLD etc). If you wish to discuss further, its probably better to do so at WT:POST rather than the middle of an MfD. - Evad37 [ talk 02:29, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

That's what I thought. The reason I thought it was relevant to this discussion is that folks have argued that the editors of the Signpost have editorial independence and that it is up to them to retract or blank the page as they see fit, essentially making them exempt from the MfD process. This seems far outside of the consensus-based editing norms that apply to all pages on the project. – dlthewave ☎ 03:05, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Is an MfD allowed to override our WP:NOTCENSORED policy?

I just re-read Wikipedia:Deletion policy again, compared it with the reasons given for deletion above, and I can't find the reasons given above anywhere in the deletion policy. I can however, find the above reasons for deletion mentioned in WP:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored:

"Wikipedia may contain content that some readers consider objectionable or offensive‍—‌even exceedingly so. Attempting to ensure that articles and images will be acceptable to all readers, or will adhere to general social or religious norms, is incompatible with the purposes of an encyclopedia."

I can also find them in Wikipedia:Offensive material:

"Wikipedia editors should not remove material solely because it may be offensive, unpleasant, or unsuitable for some readers."

If I remember correctly we had a lot of votes in favor of deleting all images of Mohamed, and many of the arguments in favor of deletion in that case resemble the arguments above. In that case, our policy on censorship triumphed the fact that multiple editors were deeply offended. And rightly so. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 22:51, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

lol. How often vandals do make this argument? "Deleting my userpage advertising my business and/or beef with another editor is censorship!!1", "undoing my edit saying this senator supports baby-killers is censorship!!1", "deleting my article on this non-notable activist I like is censorship!!1"... -sche ( talk) 23:17, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I see accusations of "canvassing" being thrown around, so I will say that I noticed this discussion thanks to Guy Macon starting a section about it on his own talk page, which I had watchlisted for reasons I have entirely forgotten. I am not saying that is canvassing, but if people are arguing that posting notices is canvassing, well, there's a data point for you: I came here because of a notice a "keeper" posted. (And then, probably to his dismay, proceeded to find his argument specious.) -sche ( talk) 09:47, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The mainspace is WP:NOTCENSORED, to the extent that we describe topics in an encyclopedic manner, regardless of people's personal sensitivities. Wikipedia will, for example, include quotes presenting uncensored hate speech, racism, vulgarities and the like, as well as various non-mainstream viewpoints. It does, however, present those things in an encyclopedic manner.

Wikipedia, however, is very much censored in the sense of WP:NOTFREESPEECH, including personal attacks, attacks on a community, libel, hate speech, defamation, vandalism, patently offensive material, and the like. This WP:NOTFREESPEECH policy applies to be in mainspace and in metaspace to anything that the Wikipedia community judges is not in the best interest of the community.

The Signpost is the newspaper of the community, on the community's behalf. This does not mean that writers and contributors are prohibited from expressing viewpoints that are contrary to the majority's. If someone had an essay disagreeing with something like say Wikipedia:Systemic bias, even a 'humourous' one that mocked certain stereotypes about professors in the Western world// Eastern world, there would be no outcry. However, the Wikipedia community would be well within its rights to censor the Signpost if that essay called for the violent overthrow of Western universities, or painted medical editors as being vultures in the pockets of big pharma that edits Wikipedia to maximize children suffering in order to increase the personal profit they stand to make treating sick children, in violation of the Hippocratic oath many of them took.

Here The Signpost, and I'm going to say out of profound ignorance more than malice, published a piece that is patently offensive and that attacked and marginalized a group of people that is one of the most oppressed minorities in the world. This clearly legally defensible as free speech, and no one is calling for the jailing of Signpost authors and editors. It might be even defensible as the misguided views of a lone editor deep in his personal userspace. But this is completely indefensible as something that is acceptable to publish in The Signpost, whose purpose is to

1. ... to inform the community about events that affect and are affected by the Wikimedia movement
2. ... a wish to entertain ... [with] objectivity as would be appropriate for an independent media organization elsewhere
3. ... to present ideas, publish community research, and draw attention to a cause before both the English Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia movement more broadly

This piece isn't defensible under #1 and #3, and the response from the community makes it clear it has massively failed under #2. If the Signpost isn't willing to retract the piece, only one option remains to Wikipedians: deletion. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 23:58, 1 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You mean "patently offensive" to you and indefensible to you. Clearly that view is far from universal. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 01:22, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Hate to break it to you, but it does not need to be universal. It does not work that way. Thanks for spitting on a lot of editors. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 01:31, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The bar for whether something is defensible isn't whether or not some people fail to be offended. Sex slavers have no qualms about selling humans. Nazis had their supporters. That doesn't mean sex trafficking or Nazism are defensible things. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 02:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

...aaaand we have a Godwin. Plus, typing some words on a website is not at all "spitting on" anyone. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 02:53, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Invoking Godwin's law does not absolve you from criticism. You need to own it. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 03:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I have heard and owned it, and I don't find the argument convincing. That's all. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:04, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

And I'm going to drop a hint, using your own words: it is not convincing to you. That's all. We can end here. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 03:06, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Except that, unlike the above, I actually spoke for me; I claimed to speak for no one other than me, and substituted no objective criteria for my personal judgment. Therein lies the distinction. I, too, will happily move along. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:10, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

However, you are missing a key point here. In saying «You mean "patently offensive" to you and indefensible to you» you spoke for someone else. Here's a big distinction, that resulted in a lapse of judgment. So there's finally a moment where we can move along. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 03:13, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Sigh. I won't bother unpacking this further. In the end, this particular page isn't all that huge a deal to me. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 03:19, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Regarding "own it": Accepting criticism does not equate to assenting to censorship; they're entirely unrelated concepts. A strong argument can be made that this should not be deleted, because doing so would hide the controversy and make all this commentary meaningless. If consensus ends up being that Signpost should not have run this piece, it will never be clear to anyone but today's participants on this page what the issue was – what decision was reached, or why. It would thus be a self-defeating action.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The censorship part was strongly debunked before, it's unconstructive to cling to it. However, the argument can be indeed be made for not deleting, because then it does not hide your mistake, and it will remain for anyone who will find it in the future. It will show your exact lapse in judgment. In fact, it may be preferable for those who « chose to take offense via their own willful misinterpretations of something that says nothing like what they claim it says». You may find labelling users like that very counterproductive for you. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 05:06, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The legal (First Amendment, Bill of Rights) argument has been debunked, but the NOTCENSORED one has not, because this doesn't qualify under NOTFREESPEECH, for reasons we've already been over in detail. However, the rest of what you say (other than your blame-ish language) is what I've been arguing myself (most explicitly here). PS: I find nothing even faintly counterproductive in calling out bad-faith-assumptive mislabeling of me as a transphobe for what it is, and those exercising critical thinking on this page agree with me on that. You mistake me for someone with a vested interest in the page under discussion remaining visible, and thus trying to WP:WIN. I'm not; the page should probably not be visible, but it shouldn't be totally deleted.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Regarding '"patently offensive" to you and indefensible to you': Yep. These policies can't be triggered because a directly canvassed cluster of editors who all share the same mindset are choosing to take offense via their own willful misinterpretations of something that says nothing like what they claim it says. That qualifies as neither patently offensive nor indefensible, just perhaps "apparently likely to trigger a particular camp of editors into making false claims about some else's motivations for writing something they would have phrased differently".  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The opposition here isn't because anyone was canvassed, but because the piece is offensive transphobic garbage that should never have been published. That may not have been your intent to hurt people, but that's what happened. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 08:42, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Which is exactly what someone would say if they were canvassed at WT:LGBT with a claim that the material was offensive transphobic garbage. It's no accident that a large number of delete respondents are regulars at that page and that (as far as I can tell so far) zero of the keep respondents are, other than a handful approaching it from a technicality perspective (e.g. to blank or collapse it). I'll repeat that I really don't care about the ultimate disposition of this Signpost page, other than literally deleting it will blow a hole in the consensus record. I'm fine with it being collapse-boxed or something. But I'm not going to pretend the canvassing didn't happen and didn't have an overwhelming effect (see the reversed keep/delete ratio at the userspace MfD, which was not canvassed) just because you're in a ranty-pants mood and insist on assuming bad faith. Insisting on what a terrible person I am and what a terrible thing I've done is not going to make me change my mind and kneel before you.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:04, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Contributors to Wikiproject LGBT studies can think for themselves, they are not "sheeple". [8] The notification of this MfD is of direct interest to anyone editing LGBT topics. The notification was no more than what can be read in the nomination statement. It was not canvassing. It was not intended to be canvasing. It was a notice board notification on a noticeboard precisely focused on this topic.

Wikiproject LGBT studies is a Wikiproject for people with a topic interest. Not a lobby group. Not a political party. Please avoid using rhetoric which might be read as attempting to make Wikiproject LGBT studies contributors unhappy to write here. They are welcome here as they are welcome everywhere else on Wikipedia to express their views.

Civil free speech should be encouraged, most people here will probably agree. -- Fæ ( talk) 09:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The piece may be defensible under #3, as it expresses an opinion on the use of nonstandard gender neutral pronouns as a matter of writing style. Leugen9001 ( talk) 02:52, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Exactly right. It didn't attack and marginalize a group of people. It made fun of language activism claiming to speak for that group. And the main person complaining clearly does not feel either attacked and marginalized. They appear to be in a fighting mood, and are determined to win at any cost. as evidenced by the canvassing and trying to get the author fired from a techical position on another project. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 03:51, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Umm, what? I made a comment earlier, which i think was misinterpreted, about a piece of satire which some are arguing has been misinterpreted, so i want to be very clear i do not misinterpret what i just read: Guy Macon, can you please confirm my understanding that Fæ is attempting to have  SMcCandlish removed from a position? And give me a diff or a place to look to understand this? Because, if i have not misinterpreted, that would truly be something to scream and shout about. If i am wrong, then i apologise, and wish to be corrected immediately. Happy days, Lindsay ^Hello 08:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

As requested, here are the links. [9], [10] Make a note of them; we will no doubt be seeing them again when this dumpster fire hits Arbcom. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 11:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

No, "author fired from a techical position" is false. SMcCandlish is using the brand of the WMF by calling themselves a "WMF Technical Ambassador". It is not a post, it is a self selected volunteer title, which in the light of the fact that the WMF have been forced to block the regular announcement of Signpost, stating "We received multiple reports of concerns related to potentially harmful content in the February 2019 edition of the Signpost", it seems entirely sensible to ensure SMcCandlish stops promoting themselves using the WMF brand or wearing a WMF hat. This is off topic for this MfD, should anyone wish to discuss it, they should be talking to the WMF as this is an issue of good governance by the WMF and whether they should allow SMcCandlish to continue calling themselves a WMF branded unpaid volunteer. -- Fæ ( talk) 08:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You just making up more off-topic stuff, as yet another hand-wave. The tech ambassador role is not an official position of any kind, it's simply offering to help editors understand MediaWiki better, and where its development is heading; it's exactly the same thing as participating in a wikiproject: you add yourself to a list of participants. It has no connection to WMF acknowledging that someone has made allegations relating to the Signpost article (which means nothing other than exactly what it says). I've done nothing self-promotional on WP; if you think otherwise, go open an ANI case about WP:COI; otherwise stop engaging in WP:ASPERSIONS.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Factcheck: SMcCandlish includes a "CV" on their user page which lists roles, past work and publications where they have been mentioned. "I've done nothing self-promotional on WP" is not demonstrated by these facts. -- Fæ ( talk) 10:30, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Anyone can read the following [ call for a witch hunt]. According to Fae, a Tech Ambassador has not to be selected upon tech skills. A Wikipedia Visiting Corn Flakes Eater has not to be selected upon ability to read and interpret what sources are saying. Plural_they are to be selected upon their worship of what Fae is presenting as politically correct. Why not requiring a prior hearing by Fae Fae-self ? Pldx1 ( talk) 10:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Please remove your "jokes" about my preferred pronoun. They are unwelcome and hostile. -- Fæ ( talk) 11:22, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

( edit conflict) Letting other editors know your background, experience, interests, etc., is what user pages are for. That doesn't constitute self-promotion or CoI, and you know it. The primary purpose of it is avoidance of CoI; I self-disclose about this quite explicitly. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen someone wikilawyer so hard (or so poorly) in my entire time here. An old term for this kind of behavior (I doubt it's current lingo these days) is "thrashing".  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:16, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Factual corrections when someone is misleading a discussion with untruths is not wikilawyering. Stick to demonstrable truth please. -- Fæ ( talk) 11:22, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Definitely thrashing.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:47, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I think WP:NOTCENSORED should only apply to mainspace. Qzekrom ( talk) 23:48, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Well, it doesn't.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Actually the wording of WP:NOTCENSORED pretty much states that it is applies to mainspace (article namespace), links, and images. Given that there are other policies and guidelines that contradict it for other spaces I don't see it applying to project space. PaleAqua ( talk) 08:36, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

More to a critical point, whatever WP:NOTCENSORED expressly does say, we also have WP:NOTFREESPEECH, WP:NOTSOAPBOX and numerous other policy touchstones that make it clear that there are substantial limitations on your expression of personal opinion that you have to agree to accept if you want to participate on this project, which effort requires that you be a part of this community--or at a minimum not be noxious to said community and disruptive of the project's processes and priorities. These limitations include the exclusion of polemics and of making any kind of comment (whether from principle or for humor or whatever charming combination the author thinks it is) that is more likely to inflame than to serve a productive purpose in creating the encyclopedia and it's auxiliary services.

So, putting to the side for the moment the extent that someone feels that SMcCandlish breached that threshold (or did not), the first-order presumption that WP:NOTCENSORED, standing alone, presents a significant argument for the proposition that someone's conduct cannot violate community expectations is, clearly, a completely erroneous conclusion, and anyone predicating their argument primarily upon that piece of policy language as the reason why a given bit of conduct is not WP:Disruptive needs to re-examine their arguments for some other predicate authority as to what is expected under policy and from this community. Snow ^{let's rap} 09:18, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia is not censored in the sense that we do not select encyclopedic topics for deletion just because they may be offensive to some readers, but that's the limit. NOTCENSORED is not an inclusion criterion, either. We have encyclopedic discussions on pornography, sodomy, Pastafarianism, Nazism, and a litany of other topics which we would expect some readers to find offensive, but we publish anyway because we're making an encyclopedia, a database of knowledge, not a children's book or a church bulletin. Fortunately we also have Wikipedia:Offensive material, which in part says that potentially offensive material has to have some encyclopedic purpose - we don't include offensive material just for the sake of offending. To the extent that any of this can be applied to non-article space (none of these guidelines are intended to be): generally, material hosted in project space and userspaces is expected to be works in the interest of building the encyclopedia ( WP:ESSAY covers this). It's not automatically valid because of anti-censorship, nor is it automatically invalid because it's offensive. Which is to say I agree with Snow, the NOTCENSORED argument is, taken on its own, a poor argument to use in this discussion, and certainly not a justification for closing it on procedural grounds. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 18:39, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Let's keep all discussion here please

• I'm afraid that I don't really know what the policy is towards dragging deletion discussions onto user talk pages is, but this seems to be such as contentious issue that I think that we should really keep everything here. It makes discussion easier to follow and it makes it easier for all to understand where the others are coming from and assume good faith. With that being said,@ SMcCandlish:, if it's okay wuth you, I'm going to link to what you wrote on my talkpage because it seems really important. [11] No person should ever feel that they're the victim of a a "intensively and non-neutrally canvassed WP:ASPERSIONS snow-job." I know I'm super new, but I don't think that's a particularly pleasant emotion. GreenLipstickLesbian ( talk) 08:32, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  This does indeed seem important. In other words, wikipedians should not countenance a witch-hunt. FeydHuxtable ( talk) 08:43, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  This matter has already moved to WP:ANI, which is the proper venue for user-behavior matters (or one of them; I guess this could have gone to AN or RFARB, given the background).  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  08:56, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• This is an MfD, it would be sensible if discussion were about the nomination. SMcCandlish has been invited multiple times in this MfD to discuss their tangential allegations and personal attacks on me, the nominator of this MfD, on my talk page, the natural starting point; rather than here, ANI, or other people's talk pages. This has yet to happen. -- Fæ ( talk) 09:01, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Too late. Multiple editors complained of your behavior and you did not listen. ANI is what happens when that happens, especially when it's part of a very long-term pattern of abuse for which the editor has previously been sanctioned. Zero personal attacks against you have been made by anyone in these discussions.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:40, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Factcheck: Not one warning or complaint has been raised on my user talk page by anyone. -- Fæ ( talk) 09:50, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  We've been over this already, twice [12] [13]. Sticking "Factcheck:" in front of your posts does not make them more convincing.  —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:02, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Wikipedia overboard

I for one am grossly offended by the blanking of the essay. While we're at it, shouldn't we blank the comments on that page, as well? especially the ones that offend each other? And while we're at it, why don't we just blank the whole encyclopedia, since just about every page contains something that offends someone. I vote we blank this page, because every other post offends every other poster. I would laugh my bells off if people here hadn't made me cry so muckin futch! buncha freekin' Drama Kweens! (no offense) Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  16:52, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You insufferably insensitive Neanderthal. For shame. (Irony, for those who haven't been paying attention.) ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:06, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Thank you for your thoughts, Mandruss. However, I was not being ironic and seeking an irony reply. I am seriously grossly offended, because this is not what Wikipedia is about. I am well aware of the overuse of the term "censorship"; however, this is a classic case of it. This is a news medium being subjected to gross censorship in the classic sense. And as a citizen of the world and a proven defender of freedom in it, I see "red" in every delete !vote and rationale. The forefathers of many countries are turning over in their graves. And if that ain't enough Drama Kweening for ya, try this: SMcCandlish ought to be worshiped as a god for Its (It's?) contributions (or at the very least, It should be venerated and canonized a saint of the Universe)! Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  17:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Its. "It's" is a contraction of "it is" and your grave offense to my grammarian intolerance is grounds for whippin' around the square a dozen times before driving you off to a nearby disreputable colony, Rhode Island perhaps (anyone taking offense at that has no sense of The Crucible history). – Athaenara ✉ 09:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Brings to mind the ongoing FEAR of lemurs leapers lepers and their colonies. (my spelling ain't for crap these daze) Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  17:26, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Liberalism is about tolerance. Tolerance sense 2a: "sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own". It says nothing about avoiding offending people with humor, whether it tickles our personal funny bones or not. The position of most of the Deleters here is the opposite of tolerance. The way to fight intolerance is not with more intolerance—that just ensures that the world will remain locked in an embrace of intolerance, becoming more and more polarized with little room for true communication and understanding. I oppose any furtherance of that at this encyclopedia.
Better? ― Mandruss  ☎ 18:11, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Nobody could've said it "better". The deletionists should turn their red faces around and get the duck out of Fodge (in my humble, tolerant opinion). Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  18:18, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The page in question is not news, and publishing it as a subpage of a "news medium" does not change that fact. It is an WP:ESSAY, and on Wikipedia, problematic essays are often deleted or userfied. -- Ahecht ( TALK
PAGE) 20:39, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

It's news to me and to a lot of people on Wikipedia! Advocates of the published essay being censored in any way should be whale-whipped! Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  22:12, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

When we add any user to our watchlist this is what comes up: "User:Anyuser and its talk page have been added to your watchlist". Its talk page! Where is the outrage at this coding? What does this say about each and every user on Wikipedia? Who's on first? Randy Kryn ( talk) 15:20, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Until now, most people wouldn't have given "it" a second glance, but we are all sensitive to pronouns and other "isit an it? or isit a who?" type things, and in this case a "user" is an "it". Reminds me of one of my pet petty issues with a commonly quoted biblical prayer. When most people say their memorized "Lord's Prayer", they begin, "Our father, who art in heaven...", and that is used even at confirmations and crownings of world leaders. In the King James version of the bible, the "Lord's Prayer" begins, "Our father, which art in heaven...", and "which" implies that "father" is an "it" rather than a "who". Would people prefer to see their heavenly father as a "who" rather than as an "it"? even to the point of misquoting their "written by men, inspired by God" sacred text? Seems so, don't it. Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  16:15, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Randy Kryn: "It" refers to the user's page, not the user themselves. Themself? Him or herself? -- Ununseti ( talk) 16:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Yes, that a logical point of view. But from another point of view, "its" refers to the user name. Even though the author of the code will probably claim that your point of view "is" correct, should we assume good faith, or should we take the stern assertion that they held a darker, mockingly attended, and hidden-in-plain-sight point-of-view? Make of it what you will, but in some absurd universe that coder who called all users "It" is being made to resign from a major unpaid Wikimedia Foundation project (which was much better off with them than without them), apologize in numerous locations, and drop and give me 20. Being a pointofviewist is easy, just have to forget that everyone else exists. Randy Kryn ( talk) 18:52, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Seems that in certain situations on WP, the concept of AGF is allowed to dramatically degenerate, places like RfA and situations like this one in which we find ourselves. Just glancing at the nom's nom and comparing with the disclaimer "JOKE ALERT" box at the end of the blanked page and on Mac's talk page make it clear that there is little or no AGF'n 'round here! Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  20:38, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

In all fairness Floq cannot please everyone, Personally I would've preferred blanking after the MFD (if it's closed as keep) but I can see why it was done. – Davey2010 ^Talk 17:23, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

That does not make me any less grossly offended by it, now or at any time. Point is: Where does it stop? What's next? If this senseless censorship is allowed to continue, then what else will the deletionists delete in the very near future? Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  17:30, 2 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I have a related problem with it. The editor who did the blanking had recently made several edits showing that he had a particular opinion about the content. He should have asked someone uninvolved to do the blanking. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 19:07, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

In my view, it's perfectly reasonable to hide possibly problematic content pending the outcome of a discussion or decision-making process. This regularly happens over on WP:COPYPROB. -- Ununseti ( talk) 05:31, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Ununseti, that may be true, but it does make me wonder how many people are making informed votes. The brief moment there the draft was oversighted (I believe that was the case), I can't image people really fully understood what the hub-ub was about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 05:56, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

MJL That's a fair point. When I first got here, I went into the article's revision history to see the content in question, but I guess not all people will do that. The content was hidden about a day after this MfD started, though. Should Fæ perhaps add a link at the top of this MfD to a revision where the content is visible? -- Ununseti ( talk) 06:17, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Ununseti, someone had tried that, but it got removed. This seems pretty touchy for people. ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 06:23, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

A generalized response to several participants here, their "double down" stuff, and their off-site vindictiveness: Mischaracterizing my calm and reasoned defense against this firehose of aspersion-casting as "doubling down" is disingenuous, especially given what I've said at User talk:SMcCandlish#Pronouns about accepting responsibility for this, and my support of blanking the Signpost piece.

It's just an outright falsehood with regard to Barbara_(WVS) who has not commented here, was wrongly pilloried at ANI (since undone), pressured by Fæ-and-entourage into resigning from a GLAM position at her university, and has basically felt compelled to cave to everything you're all saying about her. That in itself is a wrong, since much of what's been posted here is outright fabrication. She's not doubled down on a damned thing, but been doubled over by a verbal and contact-your-employer beating into submission. (Fortunately, I'm a private contractor and secretive about my clients, so none of this il-liberal deadagenting behavior can apply to me; none of you can get me fired from anywhere by pursuing off-site channels.) This whole gaggle of vengeance seekers should be ashamed; you're doing grievous harm to WP as an open venue. "Only like-minded thinkers need apply, and you'll be really, really sorry if you're not one of Us."
 —  SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:07, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

"You're doing grievous harm to WP as an open venue" says the person who wrote this trans-hating garbage and tried to pass it off as a joke. People can see your "I'm sorry you were offended" song and dance for what it is: continuing to shirk any responsibility for your significant role in all of this. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 19:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Hmm... always thought of you as someone with a cool head and good judgement. No worries, since people are always surprising me at some time or another. Kind of disappointed that you would stray from the subject at hand into a nonsensical diatribe that belongs nowhere but maybe perhaps on a user's talk page. People see each other through strange tinted glass sometimes. Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  00:52, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

A community response

Regardless of how you voted or how you feel about the article: if you'd like to affirm that Wikipedia should be an inclusive place, where LGBT members are welcomed and everyone is respected, I have a friendly suggestion.

1. Go to Special:Preferences

2. Add your preferred pronouns to your signature. (he/him, she/her, they/them, etc.)

You don't have to be transgender to do this - it would be very helpful for cis folks to join in as well. (If you're planning to join in with a spicy pronoun joke though, do us all a favor and don't.)

On top of being inclusive and affirming it would also be just plain practical. I can't tell you the number of times I've wanted to use a pronoun to refer to someone in a talk page only to realize I didn't know which one to use. WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 11:47, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Alas - having those with different opinions about what "gender" is, )or is not) be told to "identify yourselves to make a point" is precisely the wrong way to approach any issues at all. If a person does not tell you what pronouns to use when addressing them, one should use standard English pronouns. Otherwise one sets up a virtual "sex apartheid" for oneself. When referring to a person directly to that person, the only correct pronoun is "you" (or "thou"/"thee" if one regrets the loss of þ). Collect ( talk) 12:48, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• No, I will not. I'm not going to check the user page of someone I want to mention in a post so I can find out what their flavor of the month is, nor do I expect others to do that when they want to mention me. But I will try to remember to use singular they more often – though of course that was a good idea even in the old days of regular ol' male and female. I don't capitalize deaf or gay or black (or white) either. Many liberation movements go through a stage of linguistic militancy like this, and I understand the impulse, but there's a limit to how much hipsterism I've got the energy for. E Eng 13:26, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Part of the post was making fun of suicide. It wasn't even funny. It was like 40 uses of the word "it" on 12 half sentence lines, and a picture with text mocking suicide. The complaints are totally valid, even if you are against pronouns. ~ R. T. G 14:16, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I made it clear in a post elsewhere in this thread that I thought the piece was tin-eared and unfunny. E Eng 14:51, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

EEng, we have the gender magic words: {{gender:MJL|he/him|she/her|they/them}} for a reason. ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 14:27, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Much less am I going to waste my time with those either. We've spent decades helping people understand that gender shouldn't be an issue, and now suddenly we're supposed to be pointedly aware of it at all times and even use magic words to robotically reflect back some preference setting. It's ridiculous. E Eng 14:51, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Agreed, and by the way that contradiction occurs in other areas of discrimination as well. "Be X-blind. We are X₃ and we need special protection and treatment." For me, that's pretty much the crux of this whole thing. ― Mandruss  ☎ 16:04, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Well, there's no contradiction in saying, "We strive to be X-blind" and also saying "... but nonetheless sometimes X-status does gum up the works, so it's appropriate at times to recognize and take stock of X-status and attend to it where things can be remedied somehow" – but that's different from constantly forcing X-status to the forefront all the time. E Eng 16:58, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Affirmative-action rules are neither valid remedies nor effective ones—they are lipstick on pigs. Nor is suppression of speech that can be misconstrued as anti-X₃ or X₃-insensitive. ― Mandruss  ☎ 17:13, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I disagree with what your blanket statement about remedies but that's not the question here. E Eng 17:51, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Another funny part of this to me is that I recall years ago checking the preferences thing about gender, because I'm a woman and don't care who knows it, and now find myself wondering if because of this some users will assume I'm really a guy pretending to be female because hormone issues, neurotic confusion, whatever, and it's just down a rabbit hole again. For the record: I'm not pretending to be anything. – Athaenara ✉ 14:21, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Addendum: I realize I may have set myself up as a target. If you must shoot at me, all I can say is what one of the guys in my family tree is purported to have said: "my only regret is that I have not more lives than one to offer". – Athaenara ✉ 14:28, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Athaenara, that gets you an invite to WikiProject Connecticut. ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 14:34, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Seconded, from a CT resident who's braved the wilds of Coventry to visit his home. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 15:36, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Goodness! Two Ardrey quotes on your  It  User page! As an aside, African Genesis was, for a time, my new Bible, beginning with my service in Ethiopia as a PCV. Paine Ellsworth, ed.   ^put'r there  17:38, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Note You can use {{ pronoun|<username>}} to display the pronouns that a user has set in Special:Preferences. Qzekrom ( talk) 15:25, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• @ Qzekrom: I got an unexpected laugh out of this, too. I saw your post, tried it out on my own username, saw it worked, thought, cool!, went out for a few hours, came back, read more discussion, realized that a different sort of person will have tried it out on lots of other editors' usernames. Humor! Thanks! – Athaenara ✉ 22:10, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• A script which could show someone's pronouns in a little pop-up box would be extremely useful. I've now made User:Wumbolo/pronouns.js which shows pronouns (set in Special:Preferences) above pages in user and user talk, but I'm sure this already exists. wumbolo ^^^ 17:35, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  For anyone who uses the Navigation Popups tool, hovering over someone's username shows a ♂ or ♀ if people have selected "he/him" or "she/her" in settings. GorillaWarfare  (talk) 21:53, 3 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Only two possibilities? That's hateful and exclusionary! E Eng 00:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  I think it doesn't display a gender icon for they because they is the default in Special:Preferences. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 01:17, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  Was that really necessary? EEng, I get this whole thing is frustrating (I really do). However, commentary like that is not like the excellent insight I have come to expect from you. :( ― MJL - Talk- ^☖ 01:37, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  was that really necessary...? By the look of it, yeah. One of the problems here is that some people are weaponizing forms of address, in both directions. Qwirkle ( talk) 02:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  User:PleaseStand/User info is a super useful script and shows ♂ or ♀ on user and user talk pages. -- AntiCompositeNumber ( talk) 02:23, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  A fork of this script at User:Enterprisey/userinfo also does the same thing. Alucard 16 _{❯❯❯ chat?} 17:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• I appreciate the tip WanderingWanda. Mark D Worthen PsyD (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 04:59, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Thanks for the advice, WanderingWanda. I don't want to say "have you considered" because you probably have, but many editors who identify as genders other than male have indicated over the years that they actively avoid disclosing their gender preference out of fear of persecution and harassment; Wikipedians are no exception, especially because of our community that's unusually tolerant of harassment. So, I advise caution in accepting your recommendation, though I get the point and I know it comes from a good place. For my part several years ago I wrote a bit on my user page about pronoun preferences, which I think is a reasonable compromise. Of course my view on this is privileged.

To everyone else, just be mindful and respectful. Nobody's going to stand here (for long, anyway) and order you that you must address gender in this particular prescribed way, it just doesn't work that way. Whether you want to use masculine default, or generic he, or singular they, or just call everyone "Biff", we'll find a way to get along. None of us can be reasonably expected to always proactively search out a user's preference, but if someone has gone to the effort of asking you to respect their genuine pronoun preferences, it's a big deal to them even if it's not to you, and there really isn't a non-asshole way to decline. On the other end, if someone has misgendered you, don't assume it's in malice: the overwhelming majority of editors here are male and more likely to be genuinely uninformed about this topic. Assume good faith: it's a policy. Now, if someone is deliberately misgendering you, then it's a good idea to find an administrator in this category, or see the shamefully weak instructions at WP:DWH. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 18:15, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Ivanvector: If someone doesn't feel comfortable declaring their pronoun preferences they absolutely should not feel pressured to do so. :) But this actually ties into why I want to encourage cisgender folks, in particular, to declare their preferred pronouns. As things are now, a trans person might feel trapped between wanting to let folks know their preferences, but not wanting to out themselves or feel like they're making a fuss. That's why it would be helpful if pronoun declarations became common among not just trans folks, but cis folks as well. This is a POV I've heard repeated several times in my circles. So that's why I say: for anyone who feels comfortable doing so, go ahead and add a brief note about your pronouns to your Wiki user page, your Wiki signature, your email signature, your Twitter profile, and/or your nametag, etc. :) (The most common way to format this is: "he/him", "she/her", "they/them", etc. Why this specific "subject pronoun/object pronoun" format? I don't know, but perhaps because it can be efficient. There are some contexts where you wouldn't want to write a full sentence like "my preferred pronouns are..." and you can stick the phrase "she/her" onto, say, a Twitter bio on its own and your meaning will be pretty clear.) WanderingWanda (they/them) ( t/ c) 21:04, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Thanks WanderingWanda, I appreciate your viewpoint on this issue. Other users might be interested in pronoun.is, a website with a database of personal pronoun examples. If I understand how the devs intend it to be used, "this comment is written by Ivanvector, whose pronoun.is/he." There are certainly some in that database that are unexpected, but I for one endeavour to respect preferences where they are stated. Ivanvector ( ^Talk/ _Edits) 00:33, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• I'm sorry but this has to be one of the most dumbest thing I've seen on this place!, Adding pronouns to your signature simply makes you look like a bellend and it makes me want to stay away from you as humanely possible, FWIW under "Internationalisation" I've got the "He.." ticked which has been ticked for years .... but adding pronouns to your signature is absolutely ridiculous and IMHO should not be done,

He, She or They are my only pronouns that I use and regardless of what bs someone conjures up those 3 aren't changing. – Davey2010 ^Talk 21:34, 5 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• You know, it works both ways. If these things make you object, then people will need to stay away from you as humanely possible, so that they will not be attacked by a ridiculous rant. -- Sleeps-Darkly ( talk) 00:32, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• I have never (and would never) attack nor rant at anyone over their signature (regardless of pronouns) - If someone wants a pronoun in their signature then great but in my honest opinion it simply makes you look like a total bellend,

I wouldn't treat transgender people differently however out of fear of being corrected I would rather just not go there, What I'm trying to say is if you don't shove it in my face or don't turn a discussion into a "please refer to me as this or that" then we'd get a long great, (These days I don't automatically assume people by genders and instead refer to everyone as "they")

I appreciate not everyone's going to agree with me nor do I expect anyone too but that's just me .... I believe everyone should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, disability etc etc .... and so despite my above comment I wouldn't automatically just "not interact" if that makes sense. – Davey2010 ^Talk 01:53, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Personally, I don't get offended when people call me by the wrong pronouns (which happens all the time in meatspace!). I just gently correct them. Qzekrom 💬 ^they_them 02:58, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Davey2010: I suppose we all have certain types of people that we try not to interact with. For me, it's incel creeps who take pictures of young women on public transit. Just as an example. I don't understand why it would bother you if people add pronouns to their signature. They are just trying to help you tailor any messages to them. If that upsets you, maybe it is time to retire from Wikipedia. World Band Receiver ( talk) 05:28, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Slightly bizarre example .....but okay then, As I said I simply think it's ridiculous to add pronouns but ofcourse everyone's different and what I may believe is ridiculous others may believe is fine,

It doesn't upset me per se but either way I certainly don't plan on throwing in the towel over it. – Davey2010 ^Talk 20:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Another thing you can do: whenever you're writing about someone, just always use {{they|USERNAME HERE}}. {{ they}} automatically expands to the correct pronoun (from user preferences), so you don't have to go look it up. There's also {{ their}}, {{ them}}, {{ they are}} and {{ they have}}. Gaelan 💬 ✏️ 03:17, 6 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.