User talk:CaveatLector

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This user currently disillusioned with Wikipedia and is on an indefinite break. Why, you ask? Because I am fed up of people deleting factual, supported information that they do not agree with or find 'reprehensible'. I am tired of people screaming the idea that there is a 'homosexual agenda' on Wikipedia because such facts are included. I am tired of people considering homosexuality a 'slur' or 'attack' or a 'point of view'. The Wikipedia community, at this point, has no respect for history, reliable sources, or expert opinion (and this is not just limited to LGBT articles, but is rampant all over the project). Wikipedia is not yet ready, nor am I sure it will ever be ready, to be considered a source worthy of academic use. This project as it currently stands showcases the worst of the American ideological bias against intellectualism, history, and factual information that might be 'uncomfortable'. When my faith in the community's ability to overcome these elements returns, so will I.
Archive
Archives
  1. 2006
  2. Jan 2007-July 2007

[edit] Raglan

And if there were a footnote, it would read "The Hero ISBN whatever, passim. ;-> We can do that in text; at least until the footnote brigade get their way,

I agree that Raglan should be mentioned at Hero; but not as the analysis of Greek hero cult, which may need to be another separate article. There's a reasonably good start at an article at FitzRoy_Somerset,_4th_Baron_Raglan#The_Hero, btw; it needn't start from scratch. Good luck. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks; it's now Greek hero cult, and seems to have grown. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gay pride article

Why did you remove sourced material without adding to the discussion on the talk page? Could you please go into more detail about "Dubious statements" and what you mean by "better sources". I feel no reason to continue the article when I would expect further edits with no explanation. Many hours of research and writing went into that. I don't see how I am supposed to understand what your meaning is without your talking directly to your actions on the discussion page to know what you expect or what you feel is needed. The edit summery only conveys so much. A little more information would be helpful. One other question. Your placement of the expansion tag is in the middle of a section. Does that mean you feel expansion is only needed for the Roman section or the entire ancient history section? Any help you wish to give would be appreciated.--Amadscientist 02:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About Kenneth J. Dover

Could you tell me what your thoughts are on this person and his writings. As I understand it there is some controversy with his theories or research or just possibly his use of such.--Amadscientist 05:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] An essay I've written

Hello. Since we often express similar arguments in deletion debates, I thought you might want to read an essay I've written, found at User:Eyrian/IPC. I'd be interested to hear any feedback on its talk page. --Eyrian 15:19, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] userification

Re Kitsune, I'll userify anything that isnt copyvio or BLP. If a closing admin forgets, just let me know. DGG (talk) 00:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Benign vs. chiding

First of all, Cav, I should apologize for a quick, visceral response to your remarks. As I noted, I had just spent more than 5 hours laboriously typing out quotations word for word from a thick volume balanced on my lap; I was tired and sore and snappish, and perhaps I did overreact a bit.

Still, if more than one editor has reacted to your innocently-intended comments as I did, you might think about bookmarking what you wrote, and coming back to look at it in a month or two when you can see your own words perhaps a little more objectively.

It's hard for me, looking at your comment now, to pin down the precise irritant that snagged my tripwire. Really, it's not so much the words themselves per se, it's how you phrased them that conveyed what felt--rightly or wrongly--like a dismissive sort of rebuke to me.

Trying to be more specific here, when you say "You want to do this, BUT it WOULD BE BETTER to do . . ." feels like you don't think my judgment is equal to yours. It sounds like what a parent, a teacher, or an employer (a boss) would say. As if I need to be corralled, controlled, and channeled into Doing the Right Thing, which I can't be trusted to know or do on my own.

Ditto for when you say "without using language that is too . . ."; again, it felt like you were implying that I could not be trusted to use appropriate language in a mainspace article, like some kind of child or new trainee.

If I were in fact a clueless newbie asking for guidance, your comment as written would have been most appropriate, I think. But of course I'm not; you can see the list of articles I've created or significantly edited over the past year by looking at my user page. And I think if you were to skim over a few of them, you would see that they are all quite acceptably written. Not perfect, but above average in most cases, if I do say so myself, and some other editors have agreed.

But of course, that brings us to one of the real flaws of Wikipedia: anonymity is a great lure--I probably wouldn't be writing and editing all these gay-related articles if I had to sign on with my real name and identifying details (this is Texas, after all, and some folks are still a bit behind the times on the whole idea of gay rights, I'm sorry to say)--but on the other hand, unlike in a brick-and-mortar enterprise where you know your co-workers by sight and have a fair idea of each one's skill level and experience, here on Wikipedia, we don't really know who we are dealing with unless we see the name often, or take the trouble to go look up what they've done and how well they've done it.

So, as I reflect upon this difficulty, it seems to me that this anonymity might be a contributing factor to the frequent incivility we find in Wikipedia. I hasten to admit I have been guilty, too, from time to time, and usually regret it in a cooler moment (it usually happens at the end of a long night of typing, when I'm feeling exhausted and irritable). Certainly I would never lash out at a co-worker face-to-face in the way it is so easy to do here. I might well think it, but I wouldn't say it.  ;-)

But I often encounter other editors, new or old, who are a little too quick to change what I've worked laboriously on for hours, or to throw out little sneering, I-know-better-than-you comments and digs--without one single word of appreciation for anything good I've done. Very galling, let me tell you, when I've sat here hour after hour after hour, pouring my best efforts into crafting something the community can feel proud of--and more importantly, to me, something a general reader from the outside can solidly rely on.

So this is a systemic problem, it would seem, of the way we do wikibusiness here, and I haven't got a clue what the answer would be. Except to forgive and forget, and I do apologize if I took your comments in an unintended way.--Textorus 01:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, man, I may well call upon your expertise some time. BTW, looking at your stated credentials, I feel a bit envious; I actually toyed seriously with the idea of majoring in classical studies at one time, but by that point in college I'd been away from high-school Latin so long, I was afraid I'd never catch back up, so I chickened out. Would have dearly loved to learn Greek, too. Much too late to start now. Like those piano lessons I thought I'd take "someday."  ;-) Oh well - c'est la vie.--Textorus 02:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] IPC

Thanks for you essay, which I think you should add to one of the debates. Let me respond briefly-- In the case of Pac-man and the like, a point could be made that that the page is not really necessary, for the entire discussion of pacman is about the subject IPC-- that's the inherent locus of the subject. For influence of X, then you are right that in general more academic titles are much better--and i would be suggesting them except the same parties have nominated several such articles and seemed it would just confuse the discussion. I'm not sure about Miltonic tradition--this is really over-formal and would sound strange to most WPedians. But there's a third point: the influence of Milton on literature, music, and so on, is a perfectly sound and delmited set of topics. But there is also the influence of Milton on non-literary things. The total sum of references and allusions in even the most trivial of places indicates the impact on the world as a whole, not just the literary or creative part, for it is assumed the viewer/reader will understand. And all of these allusions are related to each other--the set of them, how they are used, why people who have never read the works still use and understand them, is a topic, and the topic is best shown by the collocation of the findable references.

I'm not a specialist in this subject in the least, but I am a bibliographer. I once collected 18th and early 19th century references to Samuel Richardson's works--in the pre internet era, by systematic searching of likely places and by following leads, working in libraries which had perhaps 90% of the possible sources. I didn't work on visual references--I do not have the knowledge of the sources and the tools. And I could never work on 20th century media references at all, for the same reason. But for everything since about 1990, this is different now, and the place to do it is Wikipedia. There is a sense in which this is OR, but for the topics WP concentrates on, it's a logical extension. Gathering is not OR; only interpretation is. Even if WP is the not the place for the work, it's the place to collect the sources,. I don't want to do this work, but I don;t want to destroy the sources for it. I am as a librarian horrified by the speed at which we are destroying access. I will still have access as an admin, and the material should certainly be transferred to another wiki--I can help with that but do not have the time to work on it or organize it-- and it is unnecessary--it could have been kept right here.

The question is how to build these up. The current way of deleting them first is so much the wrong way to go, that it is about this that I am fighting. I have things both at WP and in the RW I should be doing rather than defending or rewriting these, things I could do much better than this. So will you help preserve some of it? Will you, for example, help with the Eiffel Tower article, and categorize the ones you know. And then look for the sources for them individually? will you perhaps look at Irvine for a book discussing it to add to the references for the article? On a longer scale, will you rewrite at least the academic sections for some of the ones based on classical topics--your own field? Will you -- even -- be prepared to say at some of the AfDs, "keep, and edit." ? DGG (talk) 02:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the response. I agree that a project is the way to go--but I am a little to busy arguing to organise! if you want to suggest one, I'll certainly support and help, and a project supported by people of different views is the best way to proceed--projects started by people with a declared single view on the matter do not usually get far. No need to userify Eiffel Tower yet, it still has a few days to run--let's just work on it where it is. That way people can see the improvements as it goes along. But if you want to do something radical, then sure, do it there, and it can be combined. Thanks for the suggestions. DGG (talk) 03:51, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kitsune in popular culture

I was not the closing admin, but I noticed your request to take Kitsune in popular culture into your user space, so I've moved it to User:CaveatLector/Kitsune in popular culture. Cool Hand Luke 17:03, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hermes in popular culture

The article was not userfied because of the overwhelming consensus to delete it outright. Given some of the concerns raised, userfication wouldn't have fixed anything. --Coredesat 22:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I have stated on my talk page my willingness to userify anything that is not copyvio or libel or otherwise BLP. I don't want to contradict my colleague above, so if you will send me an email address or activate your email, i will email you a copy. DGG (talk) 07:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] namespace violation

I have moved WP:GAYCABAL to Wikipedia:Gay Cabal. -- RHaworth 12:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I didn't know that was a violation. CaveatLector Talk Contrib 14:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice work on Gay Cabal, by the way. I was impressed that there was already an essay so perfectly fitted to the point you were making  :-) bikeable (talk) 15:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dissociative identity disorder

As someone who has been active on the talk pages of this article, this is a request to please have a look at Talk:Dissociative_identity_disorder/ArticleSandbox. This sandbox represents an attempt to format the article as per the medical template and to retain an NPOV stance. After a period of discussion in the main article talk page and subsequent editing on the sandbox article, I would hope to copy the sandbox version over to the actual article. --CloudSurfer 19:20, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NYU in popular culture

This article was recently deleted and I am submitting it for deletion review. As I see you supported keeping Yale in popular culture - an article almost exactly the same as NYU in popular culture - please support me in restoring this page. As the creator of the page I plan on bringing it to the level of Wikipedia in culture should it be restored. Please comment on the process here: Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_August_14#NYU_in_popular_culture. Your support is appreciated. Thanks. -- Noetic Sage 23:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I was unaware of the canvassing policy before you let me know! I will definitely refrain from doing so in the future. The purpose of my message was to garner attention but I agree it should have been done in a more neutral manner. Thanks for letting me know. -- Noetic Sage 00:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

Delivered on 16:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC).

[edit] How I keep going

I completely sympathize with your frustration, CaveatLector. And as you can see from the edit counter's summary of my activity (scroll down to the green bars), I cut back my Wikipedia activity substantially from April to July. That break helped considerably. When I came back, I trimmed a lot of dross off my watchlist and focused on a single goal: getting Fun Home to FA status. I've just achieved that goal, and it feels good.

Looking back on the way I was feeling earlier in the summer, and the way I'm feeling now, the main difference is that instead of letting myself get ground down by fighting POV-pushers, rabid deletionists and defenders of the bureaucracy, I'm balancing that reactive activity with creative activity. That helps me remember what it is I like about Wikipedia: the ability to find information, present it in a coherent fashion and share it with the entire world. Yes, the process can be tiresome, and maintainance of good content can be exhausting (I can't wait for the "stable versions" to be implemented!), but it can also be rewarding when you get it right.

It's also good to remember that although the POV-pushers, bigots and trolls take up a lot of time and energy, they don't define the Wikipedia community. The key values of Wikipedia-the-community are still those of a civilized and civil society, and that's not something you can say for a lot of communities on the Internet. Yes, the open nature of Wikipedia makes it difficult to ensure that all the participants share those values — but they are still the values of the community as a whole, and that's no small thing.

My advice to you is that you take a wikibreak for as long as you need to recharge your batteries, and when you feel ready come back with a project in mind. At least, that worked for me. It may be hard to let go of articles which you're used to defending, but I've found that when you step back others will step forward. After all, that's the point of a wiki — none of us is irreplaceable. And that can be liberating.

Whatever you do, I wish you happiness and good fortune. You're a good egg, C.L. — don't let this place make you feel scrambled. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia degradation

Hi, I too have experienced this. I see it in various ways. On one hand, it is definitely a degradation of the principles which governed this project a couple of years back (I think I will soon enter my fourth year of editing here). It seems to be happening with greater frequency that groups of like-minded people impose their own moral imperative on what should be a factual debate. On another hand, it was only a matter of time until something like that happened. Frankly, I have been expecting it. A project that started out with a handful of intellectual idealists has now been discovered by less evolved individuals who use numbers to overcome reason. It reminds me of what Thurgood Marshall said upon leaving the Supreme Court: Decisions were being taken not by strength of reason but by force of numbers, and he wanted none of it.

So, I sympathize. On the other hand, I prefer to take a long term view of it, namely that people can and do learn, and that over time reason will prevail. You do have to be willing to lose some battles, even when you are right, and not take it too much to heart. I personally find it painful when I draw the attention of the community of people interested in LGBT matters to this kind of conflict, and no one gives a damn. But what can you expect of a group led by a person who criticizes edits on the basis of them not "serving the cause"? Screw the "cause," the only cause we have here is accuracy and intellectual integrity. So that is how matters stand, but in closing let me just point out that if all reasonable people pack it in, the field will be left to the bigots and the gang bangers, and that would be too bad. Haiduc 23:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

Delivered on 17:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC).

[edit] LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

Delivered on 12:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC).

[edit] LGBT WikiProject Newsletter

Delivered on 20:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC). SatyrBot 20:58, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] just in case you check here, you may wish to again discuss Bisexual erasure

While assuming nothing but good faith on the part of the editor who merged the articles, due to the history of as well as lively and vigorous discussion about this article, I have restored the article and substituted instead two merger discussion boxes, one on Bisexual erasure and one on Biphobia.

I look forward to discussing and working on this and other subjects with you in the future. Respectfully CyntWorkStuff (talk) 02:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request for comment on Category Redirect template

Because you are a member of WikiProject Categories, your input is invited on some proposed changes to the design of the {{Category redirect}} template. Please feel free to view the proposals and comment on the template talk page. --Russ (talk) 21:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Notice of Inactivity

In trying to deliver the LGBT Project newsletter, SatyrBot detected a period of three months of inactivity from this account. You have been placed in our "Inactive Members" section. If this has been done in error, please let my bot owner know and change your status in he project. Thanks! SatyrBot (talk) 23:23, 19 January 2008 (UTC)