Talk:Santorum (disambiguation)

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This page contains the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of a page entitled Santorum.

See also: Rick Santorum, Dan Savage

One of the archived deletion debates


Contents

[edit] Original VfD Discussion

The result of the debate was to delete the page.

More of an insult than a article IMO not much encyopedic value. Smith03 23:25, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

    • As an avid reader of Savage Love, I was wondering when that would arrive. Delete. -- Cyan 23:32, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. More game playing in the sexual orientation war that some from both sides want to make of Wikipedia. Yawn.Ark30inf 23:43, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. Should this not be regarded as a form of vandalism? Seems rather close given the very POV nature of these additions. - Marshman 01:44, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • Could be a newbie with no knowledge of NPOV. Could be deliberate provocation, i.e. trolling. I like to reserve the term vandalism for edits that don't even pretend to be encyclopedic or useful. -- Cyan 02:41, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • You are right. I'm pointing out that this stuff is coming close to that line - Marshman
      • Hold on though, can we redirect to something on political satire, and include the content there, it is legitimate to document this kind of stuff in proper context.2toise 09:49, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
        • Why would such a thing be important enough to put in a political satire article? There are a gazillion political satire sites, books, magazines, and tv shows all with comments. This just opens the door for partisans from the other side to find malodorous obscure commentary about Hillary, or Jesse Jackson, or Ted Kennedy, etc. and use the precedent to make political points. Its not important enough, shall we put everything Howard Stern has ever said into such an article? If not, why not, his comments are more widely known than this one.Ark30inf 17:31, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • Why was the article change to a redirect to the bio page ?Smith03 22:16, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
        • This is BS and getting more ridiculous all the time. A disparaging term about anal sex from some obscure zine belongs as a major portion of a US Senator article (which is already 75% about homosexuality anyway)? Can one imagine if I copied a similar paragraph about Hillary into her article from American Spectator or someplace worse? Think about it. The uproar would be earsplitting and I would be deemed a vandal. Does anybody care about double standards and NPOV? Ark30inf 22:57, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • This is notable, and should either go in the article on Rick Santorum, with this as a redirect, or as a separate page. The query Santorum + Fecal in Google give 1,100 hits, so it is a reference that someone might enter here, unaware of the senator's connection. This is like the word 'spam', and I am sure that in the early days of its usage in the junk email sense there was also this kind of resistance. Keep it, or integrate it as a redirect. 2toise 10:35, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • Can it be placed somewhere in Neologism as an example? Dysprosia 10:43, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
        • That would work if we keep Santorum as a redirect to it, to allow for searches by people looking for its origin. Actually, how about word coinage - that might be a more natural home for it?2toise 11:37, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • I redirected it to Word coinage and integrated some of the material there - what do you think?2toise 11:49, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • I think it should left as it as and voted. Why is anyone trying to keep this page it has no value what so ever. It really should have been deleted on the spot. But I brought here to go through the vfd process. People wikipedia should be about serious information, not a place to put insults and personal attacks. I putting the page back to the way it was so people vote on it. It has little to no merit. I am amazed how people try to justify the most unjustifiable articles Smith03 13:36, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • Well, I'm a little disapointed at that, I think that many pages are edited while they are listed for deletion, some of them are subsequently not deleted. I was seeking an accomodation that I thought people might all be able to live with. I don't think it is normal that pages are frozen while they are listed for deletion, I'd like to ask you to restore the edit so that people can vote on that version.2toise 15:15, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • Regardless of how you edit or on what page you put would put this on it should be deleted it is a personal attack against one person. Smith03 15:49, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
        • Maybe, but 1. We document all kinds of discourse of a similar nature here, and this is sufficiently common to merit a mention (I think), especially as one line in the examples section of the Word coinage page, since it is a perfect example of a coined word. Even if you stongly believe that it does not have a place, I think the practice of stopping people from changing content listed for deletion to try to remove the reason for deletion is counterproductive. Please restore it, as it was a good faith effort to try to find common ground.2toise 16:08, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • We do not document personal attacks made by one obsecure person agaist another person. Thus far the only vote to try to save it your. I have no seen any outcry from other people to save it.Smith03 16:26, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC) I am sure there are many more better example of a "well coined word"
    • As I mentioned, it gets over 1,000 Google hits, so it is not so obscue as to be insignificant, and has obviously gone beyond being a 'personal attack'. I believe it is a legitimate 'coined word' (the page refers to coined words, not 'well coined words'), but am happy to accept a majority vote. What I am unhappy about is the practice (which I have not seen before) of cutting short editing on a VfD article, presumably in an attempt to prevent anyone from salvaging any content in a form that people do not want to delete. Please revert your edits, and, if there is a vote for deletion, the proposed changes can be deleleted too.2toise 17:05, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Also, Disprosia suggested that it be moved to Neologism, so the idea is not so alien to everyone but me.2toise 17:13, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

    • The debate is not where this article should be (either by itself or in some other article) the question is should this "entry" be listed in in wikipedia. As suggested by others above it is highly pov. I will not revert. The questions is before communtiy and I believe people should vote on the same article as others have already voted. Why do you feel this is such a worthwhile article?Smith03 19:18, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
    • People seemed incredibly insulted when I added to the definition of fudgepacker, and voted to delete it. Now someone writes an obscure insult (arguably as or more disgusting), invented solely to insult another person, and people want to keep it? Clear double standard to me. Drolsi Susej 23:25, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)
        • fudgepacker currently redirects to to Homophobic hate speach. Why shouldn't the same thing apply here? ie Santorum redirect to Word coinage?2toise 05:45, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)
      • The fact that some people are insulted is a side issue, the point is that it is a coined word. It doesn't stop being a coined word because it is an insult. If this is the line we take, we should also remove Gerrymander, which started as a political insult, and many others like it. It is in use, and is a coined word. We can't exclude content simply because it was coined as an insult.2toise 13:03, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)


This is all BS and everyone knows it. We want an insult of Santorum in the encyclopedia and will justify it however necessary. If I were to add an obscure anal sex reference to an article on Hillary Clinton I would be pilloried. This is not fooling anyone and keeping trash like this makes Wikipedia look ridiculous and biased to the reader regardless of the rationalization and justifications. We are oh so appalled by the term "Jesus is Lord" but are welcoming to "anal sex leavings are named for Rick Santorum" hee hee hee giggle giggle. "Jesus is Lord" had 60,000 google hits. It was said to be offensive and not widely used and POV. But somehow "anal sex means Rick Santorum" gets 1,000 hits and is just a neutral word coinage, is widely used, can be made non-POV, and we can't delete things just because they are offensive. Give me a break, its not fooling anyone. Ark30inf 18:02, 19 Oct 2003 (UTC)

  • Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest. The thing is, at this stage we're not talking about adding anything offensive to the Rick Santorum or Hillary Clinton page, the edit I made was to add the following text to the Word coinage page. Of course, we'll never know what people thought of the idea, because it was censored.

Of course, the diatribe above doesn't address the actual issue raised of double standards with the way similar things have been dealt with before.

    • Mmmm hmmm. We need to get some obsucure right wing zine to coin a term about Noam Chomsky and vomit and then we can add that to word coinage as well. Yeah right, that would be rightly called vandalism. The same applies here except there are a few who can't see it since its about Santorum.Ark30inf 03:01, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Santorum - coined in a Savage Love article to disparage senator Rick Santorum (2003, see External Links) I put it just above Scooby Gang in terms of importance.

2toise 02:33, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

    • Really. Tens of thousands of people have heard the term "Scooby Gang" since it was in reference to a major children's cartoon on network television. Whereas Santorum=anal sex leavings is known by how many? And you rank slightly above Scooby gang? Hmmmm. Ark30inf 03:01, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Delete. This article is garbage. RickK 03:33, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

A one line mention in the Rick Santorum article could be construed as acceptable, an article by itself is not. RickK 03:21, 23 Oct 2003 (UTC)

[edit] The two listings on VfU

The article was listed on wikipedia:votes for undeletion twice - once as a redirect, and once as an article.

[edit] Santorum (as a redirect)

Santorum - Since this was deleted because of its content, I suggest reinstating it as a blank page with a redirect to Rick Santorum. It would be worthwhile protecting the redirect page, since it was a popular target for people wanting to document the word's coined meaning. The only reason this matters is that almost all other people we have articles on have redirects to their full name from their family name - the lack of symetry offends.2toise 03:57, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be undeleted for you to make a redirect out of it. If you're worried that people will be critical of you for resurrecting the article name, you can leave an explanation of your reasoning on the talk page (please include examples of other such redirects). -- Cyan 05:29, 30 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I object to undeletion. Angela 04:37, Nov 4, 2003 (UTC)
The reason I brought it here is that I did make a redirect out of it, and it was immediately deleted. Angela - can you flesh out your objection?2toise 12:12, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I think that redirecting an offensive term to an article about a person is highly inappropriate. I would expect it to be very quickly deleted in the same way pages such as taw is a uncle-fucker or Wikipedia Nazi were. Angela 12:24, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear, the redirect I want is from Santorum to Rick Santorum. I'm not suggesting any mention of the coined meaning of the term, but Santorum is his family name, and should redirect to the article about him (or a disambig page), since people may well search for him by typing in his name.2toise 14:55, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)
That's not necessary. We don't create these redirects for anyone else, so why are you so inclined to set this one up? The only time people have a redirect from their surname is when the article has been mistakenly created at that title in the first place and then moved to the correct title. Angela 20:10, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

Actually we do create redirects when people are commonly referred to by surname (eg Kant, Einstein, etc). But I don't believe this applies here? Martin 21:51, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Oppose undeletion. No redirect is needed. Daniel Quinlan 22:52, Nov 9, 2003 (UTC)
We clearly do this, take a look at: Churchill, Clinton, Johnson, Putin, Gorbachev, Aaliyah, Ali, Shakespeare to name just the first few that come to mind. (Santorum -Rick) get 46,000 Google hits (about the Senator), so it doesn't seem unrealistic that someone might use that part of his name to search for an article on him.2toise 13:04, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)
On NPR this morning the senator was reffered to as "Republican, 'Santorum'". It seems perverse to deliberately not redirect his name to the article about him.2toise 14:20, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Undeletion of the old article and makeing a new redirect are really 2 seperate issues. I object to undeleating the old article. The question of making "Santorum" a redirect to "Rick Santorum" is irrelevent to this page. I have no objection to doing so, others may, either way that is not an undeletion matter. -- Infrogmation 14:44, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • The reason it is an undeletion issue is because a previously deleted page may be instantly redeleted if the procedures of having it officially undeleted were not followed. In the case of a word also being a pejorative term, I think the negative aspects of having such a redirect outweigh any benefits 2toise perceives. Angela 16:42, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
        • Okay, I believe I see what you're saying there. However I've many times created new articles or redirects in name spaces which previously had deleted junk; I'm not aware of any obligation to undelete junk history if something new is put at a name. Cheers, -- Infrogmation 17:27, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
          • I'm not saying that new articles can't be written at old deleted titles, and certainly junk history should not be undeleted when this does occur. However, in the case of this page, I believe the possibility of having a redirect was already considered and rejected at VfD, hence the necessity to go through the process of undeletion before it is recreated. Angela
I'm not asking for the deleted content to be restored, simply that open season on deleting the redirect be called off. The redirection can be protected if necessary. I really don't see a problem, since it is the guy's name, and he is commonly reffered to by his family name. The redirect has been deleted at least once.2toise 17:32, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The redirect will continue to be deleted until a majority of people want it undeleted. Anyway, the version of this page that was recreated and deleted today was not a redirect. It was an exact copy of the original version of the page. Angela 17:44, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm not aware of that one, I created a redirect, which was deleted. I understand that it will continue to be deleted untill it is listed for undeletion, which is why I listed it here. Creating a protected redirect would prevent spurious re-emergence of the original article.2toise 19:14, 12 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Santorum (original article)

I vote for full reinstatement of the santorum (no capital letters) article, referring to that frothy mixture of fecal matter and lube that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex. Wikipedia contains many, many other articles about potentially offensive sex-related terminology: Frotteurism, phone sex, rimming, snowballing, felching, anal sex, fisting, leather fetishism, rubber fetishism, transvestic fetishism, bondage, etc. Furthermore, the fact that this term was coined and gained currency in response to Rick Santorum's statements on homosexuality is in and of itself encyclopedia-worthy information as political and social commentary on the current state of affairs in the world. Whether one approves of the usage or not, the fact of the matter is that people are using the word "santorum" in this sense, and not reporting that usage -- essentially self-censoring the encyclopedia because some people find a term rude and/or offensive -- is inherently POV. It has not been the policy in the past to censor potentially offensive language or terminology per se from the Wikipedia, and starting to do so now will set a very bad precedent. Kwertii 14:56, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Since this is effectively a new undeletion request, and since it pertains to the original article, I direct interested persons to Wikipedia:Archived delete debates#October 2003 for the original debate. At that time, it was felt that the use of the term was too obscure to warrant a complete article devoted to it; not even the main defender of the content, 2toise, argued otherwise. (Much of the debate concerned the issue of where to place that content, which was actually off-topic.)
The claim made above by Kwertii is that people are using it, and that it has "gained currency", so it becomes a question of degree: is it as well-known as the other potentially offensive sex-related terminology? A strong argument for the inclusion of the term would be some evidence to show that it has (preferably evidence independent of Savage's own column). -- Cyan 15:41, 19 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Three people above are already opposing the redirect, so it can be assumed they would also oppose recreation of the original article, which seven people voted to delete in the first place. Judging by the lack of support for undeletion, I don't think The Cunctator had the right to undelete it, but as he's largely rewritten it, it bears little resemblance to the original anyway, so I'm not going to oppose the existence of it now. Angela 07:16, 20 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I somehow missed this debate the first time round, but here's my contribution. Regardless of whether or not the word has "gained currency", its coining was published and read about by lots of people, so it is part of human knowledge. I think our aim should be to cover as much of human knowledge as we can. Therefore we should cover the word somewhere. If there is too much material about it to fit comfortably into a more general article, then giving it its own page seems the best idea. If it could fit comfortably into a more general article, maybe it should just go there. But to enable people to find the content, santorum should either be a redirect to wherever that content is, or a disambiguation page (perhaps also listing people with that surname). In any case, something should be there, so this shouldn't really be a deletion/undeletion discussion at all! -- Oliver P. 02:43, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused about what I should be voting for here, since the article is already undeleted, however I think it should stay deleted/be redeleted. I don't think it's common enough to be an encyclopedia entry (and I'd question if it even belongs in Wiktionary, but I could live with that.) Besides, even UrbanDictionary.com may delete it's entries: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Santorum

[edit] From VfD second time

  • Santorum was unofficially undeleted. 7 votes previously to delete (Talk:Santorum/Delete). Currently no support on WP:VFU to undelete. Angela 20:00, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. I've moved the relevant copy to Rick Santorum (should that be moved to "Richard S...."?) Andy Mabbett 20:11, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. I don't think it's common enough to be an encyclopedia entry (and I'd question if it even belongs in Wiktionary, but I could live with that.) -- BCorr ¤ Брайен 20:19, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • For the record, Googling 'Santorum' comes up with the first three entries as senate.gov pages, the next two cnn articles about his views on homosexuality, the next two about the Rick Savage sense of the word. It does seem to be pretty common.207.189.98.44 21:17, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. This should never have been undeleted, going against both VfD and VfU. Daniel Quinlan 20:52, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. This page was deleted before, the discussion on vfu was to uphold the deletion, and then a sysop (somehow who must know better) unilaterally undeleted it? I seriously question their judgement.Maximus Rex 20:57, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Heep and move to Dan Savage Lirath Q. Pynnor
    • Delete. The explanation of the term belongs on Rick Santorum. SANTORUM should not be its own article in wikipedia. Kingturtle 22:57, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • There is no term in common use (it was made up by a political opponent (shock jock type of activist?) to attach the most offending term possible to Rick Santorum), but that is not at issue. The Santorum title attached to the term is at issue since it was almost unanimously deleted and unilaterally undeleted. Daniel Quinlan 23:03, Nov 21, 2003 (UTC)
    • Currently redirects to Dan Savage. Agree that it does not warrant an article on its own. I believe that Dan Savage is probably worthy of an article. The redirect does not seem wildly unreasonable. (but I'm happy for it to be deleted if that's how the land lies) Martin 00:39, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Surely if Santorum is a redirect, it should redirect to Rick Santorum?? Am I missing something?207.189.98.44 00:48, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • You're missing some inside baseball. Gay advice columnist Dan Savage, in reaction to some of Senator Santorum's criticism of homosexuality, held a contest among his readership to find a sexual act or accompaniment that could be called "santorum" to embarrass the senator. Savage ultimately chose (from memory, I may be off here) "the frothy mixture of feces and lubricant discovered on sheets after anal intercourse". orthogonal 01:58, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Santorum should redirect to the senator's page, NOT to Savage's page. The senator's page should discuss Savage, and link to Savage. I turned Santorum into a disambiguation page. Kingturtle 09:46, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
      • I strongly disagree. Wikipedia is turning into a forum where even the most trivial criticism, often neologisms, are ingraved into articles and protected by critics of that person, place, or thing. Santorum may belong on the Dan Savage article if it's a particularly notable thing he has done, but I doubt it even qualifies there. The only reason this is in Wikipedia is because of axe grinding. Daniel Quinlan 05:49, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)
    • In my opinion, the senator does not warrant a redirect (only-surname redirects are needed for the most famous of people only) and the slang term does not deserve an article (although I don't mind it being discussed elsewhere as it is now). Leaves a disambiguation page with zero meaning, delete. Andre Engels 11:59, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete, if only to support the notion that consensus means something here. The disambiguation is pointless, and the "valuable" content is where it belonged in the first place. --Minesweeper 11:56, Nov 27, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Further discussion

OK: a number of Wikipedians are taking offence at the title of the page Santorum, either as a redirect or a disambiguation page. This triggers the next part of wikipedia:redirect, where we ask whether the page is worth saving as a redirect in spite of this. There are four criteria here:

  1. They have a potentially useful page history - not the case here.
  2. They would aid accidental linking - best case, but very dubious - no articles link here, Santorum is not Einstein, etc
  3. They aid searches on certain terms - a search for Santorum will already pick up both Rick Santorum and Dan Savage - so not the case here
  4. Someone finds them useful - nobody has stated they would find this redirect useful.

Given that, I suggest that our policy pages would imply deletion. In addition, the majority of opinion appears to be in favour of deletion. However, those who desire to keep the content have won a concession in keeping that content at Dan Savage. Most seem content to lose the redirect.

The chief dissenting voice is 2toise, who fears that the lack of a redirect would be "unsymmetrical", and presumably is concerned at the appearance of bias. I can understand this concern, but I feel in this case it is not sufficient to outweigh the offence caused. In particular, I note that avoidance of bias is not one of our criteria for keeping redirects. I therefore judge that deletion is appropriate - however, I would prefer to discuss this matter with 2toise further in an attempt to attain rough consensus. Martin 00:04, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

As 2toise appears to have left Wikipedia, I believe we have rough consensus. Disambig page deleted. I will relist Dan Savage on VfD, as that page has change significantly in content and title from the article initially listed for deletion. Martin 00:16, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
The Cunctator and Hephaestos have voted for undeletion at wikipedia:votes for undeletion. Martin 00:29, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
And me. I don't consider the fact that a search for "santorum" will already pick up both Rick Santorum and Dan Savage a very convincing argument, because (a) the search function is often disabled, and (b) not everyone uses it. If I'm looking for information on something in Wikipedia, I usually try going to the most intuitive-seeming URL first. If I were looking for information on the word santorum, I'd go to santorum. I expect other people would try that, too. And if they didn't find anything there, someone might be tempted to write something there, and we'd be forced to have this whole ridiculous debate all over again. And certainly anyone mentioning the word elsewhere should expect their link to lead to the information if they link the word. (The argument that nothing links there is irrelevant, as this is about people trying to link there in the future.) I don't get the argument about "causing offense" at all. We have content on the word. Therefore if we are an encyclopaedia of any merit, we should allow people to find that content as easily as possible. Our job, as an encyclopaedia, is to provide information. That is true just as much for information about controversial subjects as it is for any others. Please can we try to be a bit more objective about all this? -- Oliver P. 06:40, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In its form before deletion it was a perfectly valid disambiguation page, and should not have been deleted. --The Cunctator 02:34, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It should have been deleted, as, in my judgement as a sysop, there was rough consensus for deletion at that time. I was unaware of your objection at that time. Martin 18:38, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It was deleted. The problems with the process that led the entry to be deleted and that I believe your judgment as a sysop was lacking are independent of my claim that "in its form before deletion it was a perfectly valid disambiguation page". Unless there is any dispute with that claim, the entry should be undeleted. --The Cunctator
I agree this should be undeleted. I never thought it rated its own article; making it a redirect seems silly as there are two meanings (first Google page backs that up). Making it a disambig was a very elegant solution in my view, and in looking over the discussion I don't really see a firm consensus for its deletion in that form (rather, most arguments are against the other two forms). - Hephaestos 23:30, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I felt that the opposition to a redirect was equally applicable to a disambiguation page, in terms of the arguments given, and there were at least three "votes" for deletion that explicitly considered and rejected the disambiguation solution: Andre Engels, Daniel Quinlan, and Minesweeper.

As the Cunctator notes, these comments are solely in defense of my decision to delete, rather than being opposition to undeletion of the article now, given these two additional comments here. On the matter of undeletion, I shall abstain. Martin 00:27, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Yes there's no problem with your having deleted it, under the circumstances, the discussion was quite involved, convoluted etc. in addition to being muddied by incidents that shouldn't have happened. I just think it could use another look before we close the matter altogether, and maybe be undeleted if there's general agreement on its status as a disambiguation page. - Hephaestos 01:53, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I agree that it was a perfectly valid disambiguation page, and should therefore be undeleted. Since we have Wikipedia content on both santorum the term and Santorum the chap, it would be silly to have nothing at santorum to direct people to this content. -- Oliver P. 13:14, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't hold oppose undeletion, so if there another vote on deletion or undeletion or redeletion or whatever it is people are voting for at the moment, then discount whatever I said previously. However, my opinion is that there is probably not much point in having a disambiguation page just because one article happens to mention the use of the word santorum. I don't think the information on this term in the article is enough to justify the creation of the disambig page and the arguments for not having an article on it (ie- it's just a neologism and not noteworthy enough to be an article) apply equally to a disambiguation page in this case as they did for the article. We don't create disambiguation pages for every word listed in every article; only for those which are noteworthy enough. I can't see that this term needs it, but if others feel strongly that it is required, I will go along with that. Angela 12:58, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think that the ideal situation would be to have either redirects or disambiguation pages (if not whole articles) for every term that we have content on. Since the job of an encyclopaedia is to provide information, the easier it is to find that information the better. Of course this is an ideal unlikely to be attained, because setting up all those redirects and disambiguation pages would be very time-consuming and not a very interesting way of spending one's time. But the fact that we'll never have all of them isn't a reason to discourage their creation. -- Oliver P. 18:03, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I believe you now have three votes for undeletion and two abstentions. Our undeletion policy (which is weird!) would thus permit any sysop to to undelete if they are sufficiently bold. However, I'm too timid... ;-) Martin 18:50, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So all the previous votes from people who wanted this deleted no longer count? I'm seeing some overlap with the issues of repeated VfD listed of the AKFD stuff here. If it is undeleted, it must also be relisted on VfD (for the third time) which doesn't really solve anything. Angela 23:18, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)
Not according to our undeletion policy, at least as it is written down. But it's a weird policy, and I'm not convinced it's the right approach. I would prefer something orientated more towards consensus and deliberatio myself, since Wikipedia is not a democracy. Martin 19:19, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The Cunctator has recently undeleted the page. I have just listed it on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion, and readded the Vfd boilerplate text to the page.
My response to your question is that the comments on whether or not something should be undeleted are what counts when deciding on undeletion; the comments on whether or not something should be deleted are what counts when deciding on deletion. :) Of course, now that it has been listed for deletion again, the comments on why it should be deleted will be taken into account. -- Oliver P. 10:41, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The undeletion of this page is absurd and an abuse of sysop status by The Cunctator who has been a major participant in this. How can a page that easily passed the 2/3 threshold on VfD three times be undeleted without regard for past history, consensus, and the intent of the policies. I realize some people have a axe to grind against Rick Santorum, but when that axe is swung using sysop privileges and deliberate gaming of the undeletion policy, I think a line has been crossed... again. Daniel Quinlan 18:00, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)

That's the thing when you have an undeletion policy based on numbers - it's vulnerable to "gaming". That's why I've been so much against an equivalently numerical deletion policy, preferring "rough consensus" as a guideline, which I think works well. It should probably be changed somehow. Martin 19:19, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This should not be deleted. The use of this word is little different from "Comstockery" which used the root of a real person's name to reflect with a negative connotation the types of behavior that individual (Comstock) participated in. Unfortunately, by taking unpopular or risky political decisions, your name can become connected in a synecdochic fashion to other means. It is a form of resistence. It is polysemy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.253.139.93 (talk • contribs) .

We don't have an article on Comstockery either. Powers T 19:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Delete it, or make it neutral

If Dan Savage wants to make an attack on Rick Santorum, because he:

  • interpreted Santorum's remarks a certain way, and
  • objects to the POV which those remarks (as interpreted) express

Then, he can make such an attack.

BUT, the Wikipedia need not (and probably should not) cooperate in this attack.

We didn't change Mecca to Macca just because a few Arabs object to the phrase "mecca for gambling" used to describe Las Vegas.

We should not add neologisms to the English language on behalf of an advocate. Rather, we should wait and see whether the neologism catches on.

Remember "homicide bombing"? It never caught on, so the term is just a (very) minor part of suicide bombing.

Really, you guys are making a mountain out of molehill. It's as if you WANT to have a fight.

Just think of a NEUTRAL way to describe everything.

If there MUST be a disambiguation page, let it be something like this:

--Uncle Ed 18:16, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Didn't it say that when you deleted it? --Camembert

No, it mentioned "the sex term" as if it had ALREADY caught on. --Uncle Ed 20:41, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, I like my disambiguation pages to be simple and short - since there purpose is just to redirect folks to the appropriate correct article. The current text feels to discursive, for my tastes. Martin 02:51, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Some discourse is necessary in a case like this to avoid offense to the reader.—Eloquence

It seems to me that the trick is to find a way to make the disambiguation page truly neutral and as inoffensive as possible, while adequately communicating the information needed for the reader to decide which link to follow. Also, it seems to me that Wikipedia can document the controversy and can document the attempt to get the word "santorum" sensu Savage into ordinary parlance, but should not itself be co-opted into advancing that attempt. I'm not sure what the threshold for deciding that "santorum" is really in common parlance should be or how to measure it. Until I see some convincing evidence, I think it's just like "freedom fries"—a politically charged locution whose coiners hope will catch on, but probably won't.

Staring at the article, I decided to tinker with the wording a bit. "Santorum" and "santorum" are not the same word. The first is Santorum's surnace; the second is Dan Savage's coinage. I also thought that it was clearer, and still neutral, to say that Savage's coinage was "in retaliation for" rather than "because of" Santorum's remark. Dpbsmith 03:35, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I concur. Voyager640 11:11, 7 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This really is tricky stuff, isn't it? I'm looking at VeryVerily's last edit and thinking that the balance just tipped again.

Before: "Santorum made comments comparing homosexuality to bestiality, polygamy, and incest."

Yeah, that's roughly how I perceived it. But VeryVerily points out that that isn't really what Santorum said. And that the remark, by subtly distorting Santorum, departs from neutrality. Which I guess is true.

But the problem is that by the time you elaborate it into

"a controversial comment claiming that the "privacy of one's bedroom" argument often used to defend homosexuality could also be used to defend bestiality, polygamy, and incest," you have summarized Santorum's argument in such detail that it's started to become a presentation of Santorum's point of view. His overt point of view, anyway...

...because my perception (others' mileage surely will vary) is that the logical argument was just a smokescreen, and that Santorum's real intention really was, indeed, to equate homosexuality to bestiality. So, by presenting Santorum's superficially logical argument, Wikipedia is collaborating in putting up the smokescreen. That's my point of view.

Can't we find some sort of wording for the disambiguation page that does NOT make either Santorum's argument or Dan Savage's?

Howzabout:

santorum: a sex-related neologism coined by sex columnist Dan Savage, a homosexual, after Senator Rick Santorum made a controversial comment which offended many homosexuals. See Santorum for details on the remark; see Savage Love for details on Savage's response.

I think it's neutral and factual to say that the remark "offended many homosexuals" though I don't know how I'd quantify that. It's more neutral than summarizing the remark—because it's easier to judge whether the remark offended homosexuals than to judge whether the summary of the remark is fair or accurate, or whether the remark ought to have offended homosexuals. Dpbsmith 02:59, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If the remark is to be summarized, it should be summarized accurately. That means stating what Santorum said. This is true even if one thinks it's a smokescreen for gay-hatred or a coded message to the Illuminati. Those theories and interpretations should be stated as theories and interpretations, POV, not as what he did say.
The claim that it was a smokescreen is, also, indefensible. The comment was submerged in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable interview in which he was being asked about his views on the right to privacy and purported right to homosexual acts. Why would he suddenly decide to put in a coded message instead of just answering the questions according to his beliefs?
As for the bestiality claim you mentioned, he so far as I can find never made any comparison to bestiality. He said bigamy, polygamy, adultery, and incest. I should have erased bestiality but foolishly trusted my fellow Wikipedians that he had made that comparison.
As of now, both sentences have been erased and truncated from this page on grounds of non-brevity (not by me). There of course remains a real question as to whether this entry should exist at all. -- VV 06:52, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)
My remarks on my own opinions and perceptions of what Santorum meant are for this talk page, not for use in any article. Nobody is ever going to agree on what particular plausible logical argument is "really" a smokescreen. That doesn't mean that smokescreens don't exist. I was hoping that you would agree that if an argument is a smokescreen, than it is not truly neutral. I mean, this is just the reverse side of the coin from the people who were putting the Savage content on the Santorum page on the grounds that it is narrowly factual to say "on thus-and-such a date, so-and-so make the following remark about the subject of this page."
I think the current state of the disambiguation page is OK. I think the disambiguation page is currently functioning as a good neutral starting point to insure that the Dan Savage content stays out of the Rick Santorum page without removing it from Wikipedia. People that are looking for Rick Santorum will find the Rick Santorum page. People that are not sure have a reasonable opportunity to go to the Rick Santorum page without being offended or directly presented with anti-Santorum content. And conversely for people who are wondering about the background of the "santorum" coinage. The big problem now to my way of thinking is that the Rick Santorum page itself is not sufficiently neutral.

Of course, a related problem is the state of search features within the wiki itself. I don't know the background or how effective the old system was, because global search has been unavailable for as long as I've been paying attention. If we really had a good search feature (or an index as good as the one in the Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition--that index is a real work of art) then it wouldn't be as important to have the disambiguation page because a search on "Santorum" would bring up the Savage page. Dpbsmith 10:33, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Further VfD discussion

  • Santorum
    • Disambiguation page recently undeleted after several people supported such an action at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion. Discussion can be found at Talk:Santorum. My opinion is that it should be kept, by the way. -- Oliver P. 10:21, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • Keep. This is an important distinction, and it hardly seems like Rick Santorum's page should be the only place to link to the sexual meaning. And I've been known to use that term before. Voyager640 15:29, 6 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • If that is so, it is only due to the persistence of a few people. Daniel Quinlan 15:52, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
        • I think the problem here is that very few people look at Votes for undeletion compared with Votes for deletion. Therefore the "bloody-minded" and others can push through what the community clearly voted to delete. This just wastes everybody's time. Secretlondon 15:57, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
        • Not to start a ruckus or anything, but it was also the persistence of a few people that kept the term out of the Rick Santorum article, where it probably most logically belonged (in NPOV language of course). This term is not lacking in currency; I for instance learned about it neither from Savage's column nor from Wikipedia. And it quite passes the "Google test"; a search on santorum lube results in 1,350 hits. - Hephaestos 16:09, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Keep the disambig. -- John Owens 11:04, 2003 Dec 3 (UTC)
    • Is the sexual reference actually used by anyone? It's not really a disambiguation as both references refer to the same person. Secretlondon 11:06, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. To me it makes more sense to have Rick Santorum mention and link to Dan Savage, which already links to the R.S. page. How can you disambiguate someone from themselves? Bmills 11:14, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Keep. Santorum in the sexual meaning is used by a small segment of the population and should be kept just like the entries on erotic humiliation, sexual bondage, and erotic spanking, all of which are sexual practices used by only a small segment of the population. If desired, we can put some boilerplate saying it is a new use of the term (does said boilerplate exist?). --zandperl 12:51, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • No, it isn't "just like" those other entries. I bet dollars to donuts there are a lot more google references to "sexual bondage" than there are to "santorum" in the invented meaning. "Sexual bondage" is a far, far more commonly-used term. This isn't a question of inclusionism for minority sexual practices, it's a question of whether the term is generally used as a word, or whether it is solely a stunt on Dan Savage's show. If the latter, then it shouldn't be disambiguated or referenced from Santorum or Rick Santorum, because although the stunt is notable to Dan Savage, it's probably a lot less notable to Rick Santorum. Onebyone 13:01, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
      • It's a valid disambiguation page. See talk:Santorum for way too much discussion of this already. People have already weighed in on this issue about 6 times. That for undeletion the article's merits have to be defended twice (both before and after undeletion) is absurd. --The Cunctator 15:35, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete, restoring original consensus. The Cunctator has again abused his sysop status by undeleting this page. The disambiguation page title and content is a transparent POV usage of an idiosyncratic term with virtually no usage in the real world. It's absurd that this page is repeatedly undeleted. Daniel Quinlan 15:46, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
    • Delete. This page has been deleted twice, and undeleted twice. This is an utter waste of everyone's time. I think some people have too much time on their hands to keep bringing this rubbish back. Secretlondon 17:02, Dec 3, 2003 (UTC)
      • Ever hear of pegging? Not listed here, but it's a term referring to female-on-male strap-on anal sex (asisdes from the more common uses in the stock market and staking plants). That too originated in Savage Love. [1], [2] The santorum entry as is is only a disambiguation page with a refernce to its coiner, and I agree it does not yet deserve more (no full page on its own), but I think it does at least deserve that. --zandperl 01:53, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • This is an utter waste of everyone's time, yes. I can't for the life of me understand why this is even up for discussion. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. That means that its aim is to help people find information on things. We have content on a person named Santorum, and we have content on a word santorum. So we should help people to find that content. Simple general principle: if Wikipedia has content on x, a reader should be able to find the content by going to x. -- Oliver P. 03:28, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)
    • Is anyone reading the deletion policy anymore? This is an entirely appropriate, verifiable and on-topic disambiguation page and belongs in an encyclopedia which covers subjects of timely interest. I sense that we are only having this discussion because people feel offended by the content. If you want something to get offended by, take a look at shock site and the included links, but please leave legitimate articles alone.—Eloquence
    • keep. Davodd 13:09, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

I like Wik's formulation better than mine, regarding santorum (word):

--Uncle Ed 22:04, 8 Dec 2003 (UTC)

That lasted a long time... not. Why is this page even still here? It is only undeleted through the persistence of the Cunctator and his nearly unilateral decision to undelete it after repeated attempts on VfU and gaming of the VfU system before the policy was altered to avoid such gaming (propose an undeletion and undelete before anyone has had time to comment). It's a POV attempt to spread the neologism which is not part of the English lexicon yet. There have been neologisms attached to other people which did not catch on, why is this the one being promoted by Wikipedia as if it was anything other than an idiosyncratic attack, and dare I make a comment, a rather low-handed one at that. Daniel Quinlan 01:28, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
I don't see any consensus for deletion of the information from Savage Love. It seems to me like a legitimate verifiable part of the article about Dan Savage's column. This page is merely here as an attempt to help those who want to find out what all this "santorum" thing is about without implying that it has come into general use. Frankly, I don't see what your problem is with a disambiguation page? In any case, since the structure of the information in question has changed, it seems clear to me that past decisions are not applicable.—Eloquence 01:32, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
It's merely an attempt to help people? Can you really say that with a straight face? Virtually every instance of the term is connected to someone promoting it and defining it, not using it. It is simply not part of the English lexicon. The term may be relevant in the Dan Savage column as it appears to have occupied a large amount of his attention in recent history. 1000 Google hits is absolutely nothing. Given the blogosphere, I could say that to Kerry is something profane involving switching back and forth (you get the picture) and get as many hits or more in a very short period of time. Wikipedia is slipping into a haven for idiosyncratic attacks. It might seem fine while the momentum is against your political enemies, Eloquence, but my concern is not for Rick Santorum, but for us. Dirt sticks and this is turning into the place to turn it into cement. I urge everyone to consider the consequences of promoting idiosyncratic attacks above information. Daniel Quinlan 02:17, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying your position. To get this out of the way: I don't personally care much about the Santorum "debate" and wasn't involved in it initally. I do however think it's an interesting experiment.
It is certainly true that it would probably be easy to reach a similar effect in the "blogosphere". Wikipedia would probably report about it if prominent bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan participated. The thing about Wikipedia and NPOV is: We don't judge. We don't say that this is immature, silly or idiosyncratic. We just have this list of tests: Is it verifable? Yup. Is it relevant to the article about Dan Savage? Sure. Is it neutrally written? Check. Might people want to search for it? Yeah. We do not have an offensiveness test and I am very grateful for that. We do not promote this information, we merely report it.
Now it seems to me that you can agree reluctantly with having the information about this project in the "Savage Love" article. This is the talk page for a disambiguation page that merely links to that article without implying anything. It is our policy (Wikipedia:Disambiguation) to have such pages in case there is a possible risk of confusion. On the other hand, there is nothing in our policy that says we shouldn't have such a page. It doesn't hurt to have it and it might help some people.
I'm not all that reluctant about it, although I suspect there are more noteworthy things Dan Savage has done or said. I don't believe confusion is even possible since the word is not in use aside from direct attacks on a few idiosyncratic sites. Note that it was, after all, not added to that article first. I think it's laughable to pretend it was added as a service to readers trying to find out what that itty bitty word means. Daniel Quinlan 03:09, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a far cry from traditional encyclopedias. We have no size limits. We have very few content limits. We can write an article about goatse.cx and tubgirl.com if we want to. In many ways we are content-agnostic. Some people will see this as a weakness. Some will see it as a strength. But it's the way it is.—Eloquence 02:42, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Note that I made no arguments about size or Wikipedia being paper. I would not even object to an article about goatse.cx or tubgirl.com (%#@*, that latter one I hadn't seen before) given adequate warnings. (By the way, I think those articles could use a warning at the top.) However, those are not relevant to my concerns so please stop the hand-waving. It's not about it being gross. It's about helping to promote factual, but idiosyncratic, attacks merely because some POV pusher adds them to an article. For example, what if someone started a rumor that tubgirl was in fact, a famous person and it managed to hit 1000 web sites. Should we link that to that person's article? 1000 web sites is peanuts nowadays, especially when it comes to stuff like this (given the number of sites devoting to attacking one side or another of every issue). I'm concerned that it will eventually impossible to read about any political figure without wading through pages and pages of how they are the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler, linked to the mob, responsible for stealing lollipops from children, etc. Wikipedia is a great experiment and I'm trying my best to coax a few participants away from the edge of that black hole. I'm a part of the experiment and there's no law here that I agree with your personal view of what Wikipedia should become. Daniel Quinlan 03:09, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
Re: use of the term, I'm not familiar enough with the gay community to answer that. What we know -- the project is ongoing and it is done by someone reasonably famous -- is sufficient to justify inclusion and disambiguation. Re: the tubgirl example, if it is reasonably verified and there is an article where this information would be on-topic (e.g. the shock site article), I see no reason not to include it. The point here is: If you want to remove information you either have to justify it on the basis of policy, or you have to propose a policy that would justify its removal. I personally would strongly oppose a policy against adding negative information about political figures, obviously.—Eloquence 03:17, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Eloquence, you're missing my point and making quite a few unrelated arguments and straw men.

  • tubgirl is 100% off-topic, you brought her up in the first place, and I have not disputed it's inclusion in the shock site article.
  • my redirection of this page and justification is based on current policy:
    • WP:NPOV (perhaps about 50% of my argument)
    • Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not
      1. Wikipedia is not a dictionary, a usage or jargon guide, or a genealogical or biographical dictionary.
      2. Wikipedia is not a soapbox or discussion forum.
      3. By a simple extension of the latter, a hacker/computer usage or other slang and idiom guide. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a hacker or a Cockney chimney-sweep; we're writing an encyclopedia. (See meta:Knocking her dead one on the nose each and every double trey for a historical example.) (But see jargon file; also, articles, even extremely in-depth articles, on hacker culture are very welcome, and insofar as guides to some particularly essential piece of hacker slang is necessary to understand those articles, of course articles on that slang would be great to have.)
      4. Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. (But an article can of course report objectively on what advocates say, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view. Go to Usenet if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views--and good luck.)
      5. Mere vehicles for testing anarchism. The fact that Wikipedia is an open, self-governing project does not mean that any part of its purpose is to explore the viability of anarchistic communities. Our purpose is to build an encyclopedia, not to test the limits of anarchism. (But none of this is to deny that a great deal of our success has been due precisely to our radical openness.)This last item just a reminder for you, not related to my objection to this page.
    • This doesn't appear anywhere yet, but my extension is that words that merely coined and not in use strongly do not belong here.
    • This also doesn't appear anywhere yet, but idiosyncratic attacks (as opposed to criticism, criticism is not the same thing) also do not belong. A famous person may call another one "fatso" (or define their last name to mean something offensive) and it may be mentioned some times, but that does not make it encyclopedic. Note I distinguish this from criticism.

Lastly, I would strongly oppose a policy against adding negative information about political figures. Please don't be disingenuous. Daniel Quinlan 03:36, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC) Daniel Quinlan 03:36, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

Actually, the tubgirl example was yours: "what if someone started a rumor that tubgirl..". Regarding your arguments:

  1. NPOV is about attribution and proportion. The section in Savage Love is neither out of proportion nor does it lack attribution. The disambiguation page follows our standard policy for such pages.
  2. I do not see how Savage Love is either a soapbox or discussion forum.
  3. Savage Love is not a dictionary entry. It describes the history of the term in encyclopedic form.
  4. An NPOV article about Savage's efforts in neither propaganda nor advocacy. An article like "Santorum is the frothy mixture .." would be both.
  5. Regarding your proposed policy, again, this is not so much an article about a word, but about Savage's publicity campaign surrounding said word. Your criticism would be applicable to the original article, not to the current structure.

As for your last comment, you wrote that "I'm concerned that it will eventually impossible to read about any political figure without wading through pages and pages" of negative information. So I concluded that you want some policy not to have such negative information. Apologies if that was not your intent.—Eloquence 03:55, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)

"Santorum" is not an alternate meaning of "Savage Love" nor can it be confused with that word, so the disambiguation page is entirely inappropriate. Santorum is a well-known U.S. politician's last name. That's all. I'm not proposing to do anything with that page, but only to correct NPOV and other problems (as I stated above) with this page. I'm glad you at least agree that an article like "Santorum is a frothy mixture..." would be POV.
Why is it not NPOV? Disambiguation pages can be used to push a specific point of view. For example, someone could make a page named "antichrist (disambiguation)" and link to antichrist and Adolf Hitler (or the favorite of anonymous editors everywhere, George W. Bush). That would be POV, just like the disambiguation page form of this page. Daniel Quinlan 04:12, Dec 9, 2003 (UTC)
"Santorum" is a word that is discussed in the page "Savage Love". We can link using an anchor if you prefer that -- it's really no different from linking to a theoretical page "santorum (word)" from a policy point of view. This disambiguation page would be POV if we claimed that "Santorum" was in common usage. We don't claim that, so it's not POV -- we call it exactly what it is, a neologism promoted as part of an organized campaign by well known sex columnist. If you have any suggestions regarding the wording of the disambiguation page, make them.

—Eloquence

[edit] Re: Wikipedia contains many, many other articles about potentially offensivesex-related terminology:

more to stpo frottage -> http://64.33.59.128/cgi/quit/

[edit] please delete or dislink from the senator

I think that this site should be beyond politics. We have a good knowledge base, why should we let politics destroy it? Lets maintain this site's credibility.

Absolutely not - we will not disassociate the senator simply because it is politically embarrassing for him. Credibility is all about telling the truth, even when it might is not politic. Quite the contrary, were we to delist him, it would hurt our credibility. →Raul654 05:40, Apr 27, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] American Dialect Society award

Just wanted to note that the American Dialect Society has given "Santorum" the Most Outrageous word award for the year 2004. (As of this edit, their site is still on 2003, but the awards have appeared in some other media publications). Dracil 02:23, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] imbedded external link

i don't want to get into an edit war over this, so i'll take my argument to the TALK page. we should not have an imbedded external link. instead, we should have the opportunity for someone to create an article for the topic in question. we want to encourage people to stay within wikipedia, and we want to encourage people to create articles. Kingturtle 11:19, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Given the history of attempted deletion here, with the disambiguation page emerging as the result, I think that a separate article would likely draw a VfD listing. That is, a lot of people would not agree with enocuraging people to create this particular article. Beyond that, I'm not sure it really warrants its own article. The article would consist of pretty much what's here -- including the external link.
The only way to encourage people to stay within Wikipedia would be to include a significant amount of the information from the website in the article. The website consists largely of people reporting instances in which the "alternative" meaning of the term has been used. I think it's a fine example of when an external link is proper; the website has more detail than we'd want in an article, plus we wouldn't want to have to keep the article up to date. JamesMLane 17:18, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Pointing to Savage Love

The Savage Love article has a more extensive discussion of the neologism; duplicating part of that information here, and than not providing a link to the detailed discussion, is clearly not the point of a disambiguation page.

Looking through the history of this page, the original undeleted article [3] on Dec 2, 2003 was a short disambig page, which then went through various minor changes until this diff [4] on March 4, 2004 by Mshonle, which completely changed the page from a disambig page to a information page about the neologism, introducing an external link and never mentioning the detailed coverage in Savage Love. Then the page went through several minor iterations from there. The crucial edit by Mshonle was not discussed in Talk and was justified with the subject "New primary source". In effect, I am reverting this edit now. The "new primary source" (the external link) was not new and was already covered in the Savage Love section.

There are two issues here:

  • Duplicating information is bad for editors since it introduces maintainance nightmares. It is also bad for readers: they have to compare both locations to check whether one contains more information than the other (which is in fact true in the present case). The current situation was exacerbated by the fact that neither location told the reader about the duplication at the other location.
  • Disambiguation pages have the purpose of pointing readers to the detailed coverage, not of providing that coverage. In the present case, this is exacerbated by the fact that the highly unusual placement of an external link on a disambiguation page could be interpreted as our contributing to the current Google bombing of "santorum"

AxelBoldt 19:16, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Frankly, of the four different arrangements that have been set up in recent days, the current one seems to me to be the worst. Rather than get in an edit war over a minor point, though, I would prefer to go back to either your previous version or Kingturtle's version. Either approach would entail putting the information in another article so that it's readily accessible to the reader, separate from all the non-santorum material in Savage Love. I'll be willing to do that. My only concern is that the article may then come under attack. The history indicates that some people simply don't want this information to be available in any form that's at all connected with the politician who "inspired" the coinage. We had reached a stable compromise on this controversial subject until recently. I'm leery of stirring things up again. Well, maybe I'm being too pessimistic. If you can accept either of the other versions referred to above, I'll do the linked article. JamesMLane 06:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
What is the argument against the current setup? Do you think readers will have a hard time locating the information they're looking for, even though this disambig page tells them directly where to go, and that article has a prominent section header for "Santorum"?
Kingturtle's version does not address any of the points I brought up above, so I'm against it. My version that you mention is almost identical to the current one and I'm not opposed to it; the only difference is that it links to santorum (word) which is a redirect to Savage Love, whereas the current version tells the reader directly in which section of Savage Love the information resides. So if you want to turn santorum (word) into a real article then my earlier version of this article would be more appropriate; otherwise I'd prefer the current version.
I'm not at all opposed to creating santorum (word), and in fact the case for that article has been getting stronger with the recent announcement of the American Linguist Society. While your statement "some people simply don't want this information to be available in any form that's at all connected with the politician" is certainly correct, it doesn't appear to affect our discussion, since the information is currently connected with the politician, both on this page and on Savage Love. I think people oppose santorum (word) mainly because they want to avoid the appearance of helping along the campaign for the word's acceptance. AxelBoldt 22:32, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Purpose of Disambiguation

I think that a vast number of these arguments are missing two key points.

One, Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Adding santorum as a word in Wiktionary is acceptable, here, it is not.

Two, you are all missing the purpose behind a disambiguation page. Someone who types "santorum" into the search box is not searching for the definition of a sexual term. They are, in almost all liklihood, searching for information on a senator.

It's pretty obvious that the only people pushing for the continuance of this disamiguation page are those who are pushing for more attention to the neologism. I would even argue the point that its not a neologism, it's a joke carried a bit too far. I seriously doubt that at any time in the future anyone's going to say "ewwe I got santorum all over my sheets."

Acknowleding the neologism is acceptable, even in a "Disambiguation" section at the top of the Senator's article, would be acceptable, perhaps even with a link to Wiktionary.

I'm also against the verbatim definition being used. While many are right, Wikipedia doesn't shy away from saying it like it is, this page is nothing more than a direct attack on Rick Santorum and violates any standard of common decency.

[edit] Irreducible Bias in Contributor Motivation

I personally think it is reasonable to include neologisms such as 'feminazi' and 'santorum' in wikipedia. But it is regrettable that people will preferentially seek out obscure terms in order to score political points. 'Clintonize', with its meaning as given in the OED, is a much more commonly used and accepted term than 'santorum' (which has no OED entry). But, at present, 'clintonize' has no wikipedia entry. Presumably this is because writing an entry for it isn't a good opportunity to score off one's political opponents. -- 67.174.217.156 (14:10 PDT, 26 July 2005)

[edit] Is it really used?

It has now been about two years since Santorum made his anti-gay tirades, and Don Savage retaliated with his proposal. IMHO it was clearly intended to attack and embarrass Santorum.

It seems to me that there's a very important factual point here.

Has the Don Savage coinage seen any significant real use within the gay community? Does it show signs of passing into the language like boycott or sideburn? Is it ever used in its Savage meaning without being explained?

I honestly don't know. But someone should try to find some evidence one way or another.

If it's being used as an ordinary word, without accompanying explanation and without reference to Savage then it belongs on the dab page even if it originated with the intention of criticizing Santorum.

If on the other hand it is one of those coinages which is mock-innocently used in hopes someone asking "what's Santorum?", then it probably does not belong. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:39, 31 July 2005 (UTC)


I'm sure people on the left would love to make "Santorum" a popularly-used "neologism." But to compare this effort or campaign to "spam in the early days" is dishonest. I could also probably get a lot of Google hits on "dumb negro." But to include a link to stupidity or IQ tests for the word "negro" would attempt to make the stupid beliefs of a small subset of society part of the knowledge of civilization... [munchy]


I am sorry, but what do "dumb negro" and linking IQ tests to "negro" have to do at all with this disamb page? Just because you think they are less intellegent does not make it so, and this is not a common modern usage. IreverentReverend 14:48, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] I revamped it

Since all the articles actually refer to Rick Santorum, it's not really a disambiguation page in the usual sense. In any case, it is quite possible that someone might type in the single word "santorum" as a shortcut, rather than the Senator's full name, so it's important that there be an entry there.

The entry might as well be a useful guide to the reader by pointing out several different articles. Although 90% of them will probably be looking for the article on Rick Santorum, others will not be, so a dab or dablike page is more appropriate than a simple redirect.

In the current wording, I've tried to make it clear that the neologism is a protest against or an attack on Santorum, rather than being just an ordinary bit of new slang, and I've tried to give enough of a hint that people who click on the link will not be unreasonably shocked by what they find.

At the same time, by not being specific, I am avoiding making the dab page itself into a Savage-inspired attack on Santorum. Dpbsmith (talk) 17:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

  • The dab page has stood with the definition for nearly two years. Reading backwards, I see you've been opposed to it for that long as well and after time you've come back to try and change it again. When I re-inserted the definition, I removed the surrounding text to the other articles you'd written - an honest improvement. But the prevailing thought on this talk page has been that the definition stands. SchmuckyTheCat 01:42, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
Here's the problem as I see it. See how far you can go with me on this.
First, I am not convinced that the word has genuinely taken hold. I am quite prepared to be convinced that it has, but I'd like to see some evidence. This is important, because if it's a "real word" that weighs in the direction of including the definition, but if it's not, that weighs against.
Second, it seems clear to me that the "definition" of the word constitutes a (royally well-deserved) personal attack on Santorum. The reason why it is an attack is that the association of the definition with Mr. Santorum is likely to be perceived by him and by people who share his views as offensive. Wikipedia can report this attack, but should not participate in it.
Are you with me so far?
Now, a reader A who wants to find out "who was it that defined santorum as a frothy mixture, etc., or who wants to find out "what is this stuff called santorum that I just saw referred to," is likely to enter santorum and deserves to find what he or she is seeking.
On the other hand, a reader B who wants to find a bio of the Senator is also like to enter Santorum.
Still with me?
Of these, let's distinguish
Reader B1, who detests the Senator, and
Reader B2, who admires him.
Now, it seems to me--and this presumably is where we part company--that if the dab page straight-out gives Savage's "definition," reader B2 is likely to be offended by the disambiguation page, and Wikipedia will effectively be participating in Savage's attack, not just reporting it.
I know which side I'm on, and it is not Mr. Santorum's. But I am not required to be neutral, and Wikipedia is. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:33, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
P. S. The Wiktionary link doesn't seem to work... Dpbsmith (talk) 02:37, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article history; wording tweak

SchmuckyTheCat is probably right about the article history. Until a few months ago, the page had reached a metastable state. However, I personally think that was mainly because no new editors had commented. I wasn't happy with it, but as long as there seemed to be stability I was content to leave well enough alone. But three things have changed that justify revisiting the issue:

  • Recent challenges and discussion
  • Two years have passed and it's appropriate to revisit the question of whether the word shows any signs of entering common discourse
  • Wiktionary has apparently dropped it.

I'm pretty much OK with Rhobite's wording but made some tweaks.

First, as noted earlier, this isn't really a dab page since there is only one thing on the page that is actually called "santorum." So I worded the page accordingly and tweaked Rhobite's wording for parallel structure with the other entries.

Second, although this may be... dare I say "bending over backward" in courtesy to the Senator (who recently insulted the entire Boston area where I live)... he has publicly insisted that he is not anti-gay. I happen to think he is patently anti-gay but, however justifiable that point of view is, it's still a point of view and should not be expressed on the dab page (where it's inappropriate to take the space to provide balance). Dpbsmith (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Third Opinion request

Hello! A request for a Third Opinion was recently posted concerning this page. The request was a bit brief, but it appears to concern a revert war that seems to be budding between User:LtPowers and User:Santorummm concerning the order in which various links should appear on the disambiguation page. I've never edited this page and to the best of my knowledge I have no prior dealings with either of these two editors, so let me try to provide a neutral view. This opinion is nonbinding, of course -- if you want a binding opinion you'll need to pursue more formal dispute resolution -- but I hope you'll find it useful.

First of all, it looks like both of these editors have been communicating with each other through their edit summaries, rather than using the article talk page. That's not a very effective way of communicating, and all editors should remember to use the article talk page. It's often appropriate to open up a talk page conversation if you find yourself reverting another editor even once on a controversial matter. If you find yourself reverting the same editor a second time, it's definitely time for a talk.

Now, to the merits. Reordering the links on a disambiguation page that includes controversial topics is always going to generate a discussion. Reordering the links without discussing it first is often considered rude, and invites the sort of revert war we're seeing now. It appears that Santorummm made a fairly provocative edit without prior discussion, and that's to be avoided.

And in this particular case, I think it's logical for the link to Rick Santorum to come first on the page, on a number of grounds. The slang term "santorum" is derivative of the politician (in fact, it was invented in a deliberate attempt to annoy and smear the politician -- and I can't say the word "smear" in this discussion without giggling a little), so it makes sense that the politician would become first. And particularly in the case of controversial disambiguation pages like this, a useful, neutral, default rule is "list the articles in chronological order of their creation, unless there's a compelling reason not to". Rick Santorum's article was definitely around before the slang term's article, and there doesn't appear to be a compelling reason to list them in another order. (I would agree that the Google test is a poor one for this purpose; controversial topics tend to attract Google hits out of proportion to their importance or notoriety in the offline world.)

Again, I hope this provides both editors with food for thought and further discussion. Kickaha Ota 19:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Santorummm, do you have any thoughts on this? Powers 20:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Sure. To date, most people now associate the word santorum with anal sex than they do with the politician (as far as I have been able to tell). Santorummm 06:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a reliable reference for that? Powers 11:23, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Google test? type santorum into google, hit "I'm feeling lucky". msn [5]. Just, you know, devils advocate. I don't know "which comes first" is really all that important. SchmuckyTheCat 20:36, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The Google test is a reliable reference for how many people associate a word with one thing over another? Powers 01:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you regularly see that comparison on Wikipedia. I'm not claiming it is accurate. SchmuckyTheCat 02:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
True, but in this case, where we have one use that is enormously popular outside the Internet and another use that is popular only on the Internet... it strikes me as disingenuous to use Google. I also note that more than half of the top 10 Google results are for the Senator, so I'm not sure the "Google test" supports Santorummm's argument anyway. Powers 12:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
There's also the issue that the slang term doesn't even have its own article. The link on the disambiguation page goes to a section of the Savage Love article. =) Powers 23:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
Everything is now moved to disambig, and the main article is up. YW, YMMV Santorummm 03:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation, Santorum is now its own separate article

This particular sexually explicit neologism has been around for years at this point, to where it isn't just about the politics any longer. "You have some santorum on your toosh, hon" would be understood by people other than those who read savages column (I've never even read it, myself). Thusly, I really doubt this page deserves a deletion...go ahead and google around and you'll see what I mean. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Santorummm (talk • contribs) .

I think you might have a slightly unhealthy obsession with this, my friend. Powers 11:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I never claimed that I didn't bud (; Santorummm 01:04, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Straw poll in progress

Please join the discussion in progress at http:Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Santorum#Straw poll regarding the content of this article and other articles that might be encountered by looking for "Santorum." Dpbsmith (talk) 09:56, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AfD Result Notice

This article was the subject of an AfD discussion closed on 19 August 2006. The result was Keep, rename to Santorum (sexual slang). Xoloz 15:32, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition in dab page

The disambiguation page is to link to articles. The article on the slang word makes it clear that the word and its definition are part of an activist movement on the internet. The article furthermore contains the purported "definition" of the slang term. This depth is fine for an article, but not for a disambiguation page. See also: WP:DISAMBIG#Dictionary definitions. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 21:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Order of terms

I just noticed (in the process of reverting a change) that the order of the terms on this page doesn't correspond to the "Third opinion" section above, where an uninvolved editor's opinion was solicited. Per that opinion the sequence would be the reverse of what is there now: the amendment would be first, then the controversy, then the slang term. I don't want to change it without discussion since I know there are partisans on this issue. I'd support changing back to the original order. Comments? Mike Christie (talk) 03:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)