Talk:List of animals displaying homosexual behavior

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 2008-01-12. The result of the discussion was keep.
This article, List of animals displaying homosexual behavior, was questioned and ultimately given a personal seal of approval, by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.


To-do list for List of animals displaying homosexual behavior: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Add further sources - use the primary research papers in Bagemihl's end-of-chapter reference lists as a good starting point
  • Search for redlinked items and pipe them to appropriate articles
  • Research to find decent reviews (more comprehensive) of Bagemihl's book
  • Research any other texts, researchers, publications etc. who cover the field of sexuality of animals
  • Research and link information to the Bibliography. Books should list ISBN's. Also some of the authors, books and editors have articles and should be wikilinked. Please also include the "Retrieved date."
Archive
Archives
  1. 2006-present

Contents

[edit] Still some problems

This is a very well-referenced list. I have a few concerns though. (PLEASE SEE SUB-SECTIONS BELOW FOR EACH DISCUSSION)

  • (1) It seems to be just a list of the animals listed in Bagemihl's book. This means the article is overly reliant on a single source. It would be better if other sources were used as well.
  • (2) The lead section says the article concerns "documented evidence of homosexual or transgender behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, or parenting". Unfortunately it then fails to distinguish between homosexual or transgender behaviour. If fails to distinguish between sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting. This is at odds with the title. If some of this "homosexual behaviour" is in fact transgender behaviour in parents (ie. males acting like the female parent), then this needs to be made clear. The article also fails to distinguish between homosexual sex (the physical act) and homosexual behaviour (a wider term covering social interactions, among other things).
  • (3) Alternative theories. These need to be mentioned and sourced, otherwise the article is unbalanced. off the top of my head, the alpha male domination theory needs to be mentioned (eg. in chimpanzees). It also needs to be made clearer that the motivations for homosexual behaviour are diverse, and that human motivations (eg. love) should not be applied to animals, certainly not the 'lower' animals. Some discussion of instinctive behaviour needs to be present as well.
  • (4) The hermaphrodite sentence: "...a part of the animal kingdom is hermaphroditic, truly bisexual. For them, homosexuality is not an issue." Mixing up the physical condition of hermaphrodites with being bisexual is misleading in this context. As is talking about animals having "issues". That is overly anthropomorphic.

Does anyone agree with the above concerns? Carcharoth 01:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, can we section each of these concerns as subheading to facilitate dialog? I think it will help and having dug through a lot of text i think we can easily address at least a couple of these. Benjiboi 02:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
You have raised some very good points, Carcharoth, and they need addressing. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:40, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Considering this is a LIST and NOT an article, is all of that really necessary?? Put all of that in the articles of each animal and there's your source. -- ALLSTAR ECHO 02:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Carcharoth, although you've headed this section "problems" some of them seem to be not to be problems as such, but improvement suggestions. They seem like good ideas to me - thank you. The way we typically capture these is to add them to a To Do box at the top of the article's talk page, so that future editors are given some ideas of things they might like to work on. I've done that. SP-KP 17:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overly reliant on one source

  • (1) It seems to be just a list of the animals listed in Bagemihl's book. This means the article is overly reliant on a single source. It would be better if other sources were used as well.
Other sources are used but as has been previously noted Bagemihl meticulously documents dozens (perhaps hundreds) of sources in the book and is considered the authority on the issue. Benjiboi 03:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Could you source the claim of being an authority on the issue? If we are going to have an article heavily based on his work, we should be sure of this. Carcharoth 13:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Well he did write what seems to be the only exhaustive book on the subject (1999) and no one seems to dispute that, perhaps reading some of the book reviews might help? Benjiboi 14:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Update. Not immediately but in the near future a companion article for the book itself will be created to help address this issue and is a better repository for criticisms as well. Then this article can summarize any perceived shortcomings as worked out on that article. Benjiboi 23:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Differentiating between homosexual or transgender behavior

  • (2) The lead section says the article concerns "documented evidence of homosexual or transgender behavior of one or more of the following kinds: sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, or parenting". Unfortunately it then fails to distinguish between homosexual or transgender behaviour. If fails to distinguish between sex, courtship, affection, pair bonding, and parenting. This is at odds with the title. If some of this "homosexual behaviour" is in fact transgender behaviour in parents (ie. males acting like the female parent), then this needs to be made clear. The article also fails to distinguish between homosexual sex (the physical act) and homosexual behaviour (a wider term covering social interactions, among other things).
The book does differentiate amongst behaviors to a degree but I don't think in all cases which then would require synthesis on our part. It would make more sense to consider rewording the lede for accuracy and possibly retitling once the lede had been addressed. Benjiboi 03:06, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Update. After a referencing overhaul takes place an effort to table-ize all or a portion of the list is underway. As part of this process documentation for various transgender behaviours will be looked at to determine the best route to accurately portray the information to make the contents more useful and meaningful. Benjiboi 23:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative theories

  • (3) Alternative theories. These need to be mentioned and sourced, otherwise the article is unbalanced. off the top of my head, the alpha male domination theory needs to be mentioned (eg. in chimpanzees). It also needs to be made clearer that the motivations for homosexual behaviour are diverse, and that human motivations (eg. love) should not be applied to animals, certainly not the 'lower' animals. Some discussion of instinctive behaviour needs to be present as well.
This is easily rectified by expanding the lede - this will expand the observer bias portion as we only have a sentence or two yet Bagemihl devotes at least a chapter as to the possible reasons. This is also a good reason to find other sources and might all easily be dealt with by looking at Homosexuality in animals which continually is targeted and has developed some decent verbiage on the subject. Benjiboi 03:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Update. Lede has been expanded to address above concerns and Homosexuality in animals remains, for now at least, the best place to address alternative theories. Perhaps when an article about the book is created the subject should be addressed there as well. Benjiboi 23:25, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hermaphrodite quote

  • (4) The hermaphrodite sentence: "...a part of the animal kingdom is hermaphroditic, truly bisexual. For them, homosexuality is not an issue." Mixing up the physical condition of hermaphrodites with being bisexual is misleading in this context. As is talking about animals having "issues". That is overly anthropomorphic.

Does anyone agree with the above concerns? Carcharoth 01:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Well it's a quote so changing it isn't a great option but it could be integrated into the text and simply balanced with "although bisexuality is distinct from ____" and then something to address anthropomorphic concern. Benjiboi 03:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the three concerns above can all be addressed by expanding the lede. Even though it is a list, this supporting text in the lede is needed to give general context. A brief summary from Homosexuality in animals might be the best bet. Carcharoth 13:11, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
I've made a try at it. Benjiboi 14:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Noting specific LGBT behaviors for each species

I've removed Indicate, for each species, what category of behaviour has been observed as I have a few problem with this item and I'd like to explore the need (why) as well as the realities of doing this as well as the logistics. For instance, if it turns out we really need articles on bisexual and transgender behaving animals or are we setting up an extra system of some sort with tables or symbols or what. If the list were only 50 items then solutions would be more apparent but our base is 500-1500 items with that number only going up. Benjiboi 22:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I envisaged something along the lines of Bagemihl's categories (parenting, courting, pair-bonding etc). My reason is that a simple list, while useful, is much more informative if each entry has some supplementary information associated with it. Certainly for a Featured List quality article, which is what we have the potential of creating here, we should be looking at increasing the depth of information per entry. Let me know if you'd like to me to put together a small example to illustrate. SP-KP (talk) 23:31, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I can't say as of yet I'm devoted to the idea of working on getting any article to FA status but improving an article is hardly a bad idea. I've gone ahead an ordered a copy of Bagemihl's so I don't have to plotz online as much. Let's really think about the end game as much as reasonable so we come up with a structure that makes sense and is sustainable. We'd have to reference each bit of information as well but that seems do-able. if it's easy enough to put together an example then go for it. Benjiboi 00:55, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
As I think of it each section (like birds) could start with a sortable table with sections as Bagemihl has; homosexuality (male/female) Intersexuality, Transvestism, Behaviors, Ranking, Observed In (footnotes as needed) with the remainder of the as yet tablelized items below as they are now. Benjiboi 01:09, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The appendix table I'm looking at now only lists homosexuality (male/female) , Transvestism and parthenogenesis. Benjiboi 01:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
FYI. Help:Sorting and m:Help:Sorting has info on sortable tables. Benjiboi 09:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FYI, template used for ledes

Templates should usually not masquerade as article content in the main article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article. This does not apply to templates which are transcluded onto multiple articles, such as templates that display the introduction for a long list (which is split into multiple smaller lists), because it would be extremely tedious to edit the same text in many different articles every time a change is made.

—per Wikipedia:Template namespace

Documenting template as lede policy with lists being the exception to the rule that templates normally do not masquerade as articles. Benjiboi 23:14, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That was added 18:35, 14 October 2007 and has been since been removed. I am here as a result of trying to improve the 'lede' in a couple of lists, this template complicates that. That should not occur, it should remain simple to edit. The page title (only) should be placed in bold, the 'lede' modified and copied to each list, then the template removed. Am I overlooking something? cygnis insignis 11:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes. this is a list with identical lede information transcluded to three articles and the source is here. I've made the formatting changes you mention so even though tempklates for transclusion is discouraged in the case of lists I still think it can be an appropriate solution where none others exist. My first interest was to transclude the lede to the other two articles but transclusion apparently pulls the entire article so thus was useless. Benjiboi 16:07, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I see the solution, but I am not sure I see the problem. Why do the pages need to have identical ledes? cygnis insignis 08:22, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
In a theoretical sense because it is one list divided into three parts for navigation; in a practical sense because updates, corrections (and vandalism) are isolated to one article that changes are made to rather than making the same edit on three articles and the ongoing task of comparing each version to the other. Benjiboi 21:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
The current guideline states;

Templates should usually not masquerade as article content in the main article namespace; instead, place the text directly into the article.

—per Wikipedia:Template namespace
... and this seems to be the sensible path. The template hinders the improvement of each page by restricting the information that might be included. There would be, presumably, different facts and sources for each page, the lead would need to summarise this. The leading text could be altered for each page, then included there, making it simple for editors to improve each page - without disrupting others. The links could be included as 'see also' templates or sections (or the humble wikilink), improving navigation for the reader. Perhaps the best path is a return to basics, an article with this name could summarise and link each list. cygnis insignis 06:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, from my perspective this is one list divided into three parts. I followed the guidelines in place at the time and even WP:IAR allows that exceptions to rules are sometimes fine. As is this is a well-sourced list. If any of the sections are expanded or for some reason change significantly that the corresponding article's lede would need adjusting I would say we deal with that then. I fail to see what information is being prevented from inclusion. And if the matter was made absolute that we could simply not ever use a template in that fashion I would then say fine convert it to an article and transclude the information in that manner. The goal is to present the information uniformly on each section of the larger list and as of yet there doesn't seem to be a need to have distinct but similar versions rather than the same version. Benjiboi 21:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images in lede

Resolved.

This template puts a picture of penguins on a page about mammals! And a picture of giraffes on the page about birds. Please, please fix that. I was going to delete the penguins from the mammal page, but saw that it was part of the template. It looks bad having these animals picuted on pages about another class entirely. Aleta (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I've flipped the photos so the bird photo appears first and added to lede - "This list includes animals (birds, mammals, insects, fish, etc.)" to address this. Benjiboi 16:22, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
What bothers me is having penguins (at all) on the list of mammals page and having giraffes (at all) on the list of birds page. They can each be on the respective pages they match, and both on the list of animals page, but it stikes me as wrong for them to be on the pages with the classes that they are not. Aleta (talk) 23:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think I can do a workaround for the photos. I have an idea! Benjiboi 00:19, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, that should solve it. Benjiboi 00:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Yay! Thanks for fixing that! :) Aleta (talk) 01:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Lol. I had to take a step back and figure it out but your point was completely spot on and we want to educate not confuse so we all win! Benjiboi 21:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DYK tags, FYI

Resolved.

Both Birds and Mammals lists were featured as "Did You Know" items but the DYK templates are page specific so have been added to those talk pages above this talk content which is transcluded to each article talk page. Benjiboi 00:02, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 145 citations

Resolved.

with 90% from the same source...? That is more than just a little concerning. Unfortunately, nothing will ever happen to improve this dreadfully obvious lack of sourcing. 68.143.88.2 (talk) 21:07, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Jimbo Wales actually thanked the editors who sourced it, so if you're unhappy, take it up with him. Jeffpw (talk) 21:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
"dreadfully obvious lack of sourcing" - wow, almost every sentence has at least one reference and that's still not enough. Exactly how many references per sentence were you looking for? Also, for anyone who's interested i do have a copy of the book, and yes, there are simply reams and reams of citations if we needed to add them but I hardly feel it's needed or the best use of my time. Benjiboi 23:24, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree and think it is poorly sourced. And what; Jimbo is god king and since he thanks someone for adding at least "a" source, that signifies the article should be nominated for FA? C'mon, almost the entire article is based on one book. I don't care how much crap the book spews about referencing other peoples work in their hunt for gay animals, it's still "one book" - therefore one source. I noticed that others stated on this talk page that they feel the same. Perhaps it might be wise to address these concerns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.129.190.139 (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
This is likely one of the best sourced articles around, every statement seems to be sourced, every animal listed is sourced. You may want to look at what WP:V and WP:RS states on the subject. Just because you may not agree that animals exhibit homosexual behavior hardly means this encyclopedia should not dispassionate report the same. Benjiboi 19:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article nom

Resolved.

I'm new to GA process but seeing as this list is vastly improved it seems like a smart move for all three articles. Benjiboi 19:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

This nomination has been quick-failed due to the fact that it is a list, and not an article. Please nominate this at WP:FLC instead. Thanks! Dr. Cash (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Lol! Will do, Thank you for the heads-up. Benjiboi 19:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] template name

Resolved.

{{List of Gay and Trangender Animals lede}} (missing s) should be at {{List of Gay and Transgender Animals lede}}, right? — brighterorange (talk) 20:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Correct, I'm not the best speller. It's been moved. Benjiboi 03:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)