Talk:LGB Alliance/Archive 1

NPOV dispute

This article fails WP:NPOV, being heavily slanted and argumentative against the topic, it nearly qualifies for deletion as an attack page. Let's see if we can save it. Current problems include, but not limited to:

1. WP:LABELs at every opportunity to descrcibe every organization: "transphobic", "hate group", "anti-gay", "homophobia", "TERF" ...
2. In particular, Miranda Yardley is LABELed with no support from the RS. This is a direct WP:BLPREMOVE violation situation. This may be the tip of the iceberg.
3. Relies heavily on PinkNews, which is highly biased and probably not suitable for documenting such things as the above labels.
4. I question the RS-based support of such phrases as "uses the same fearmongering tactics as anti gay groups use" because I could not find any in the RS cited for these sentences.
5. Fails WP:CLAIM. Don't use "claim" in neutrally-worded prose. It casts doubt on the statements being made.
6. The Mermaids fundraiser has a tenuous connection to the topic of the article and is WP:UNDUE here. Especially the namechecking of all the celebrities you can find.
7. Not really NPOV problem, but the article is chopped up into many fine headings and sections and is very hard to read because of this.

• I trust we can come to an amicable solution to bring this article into conformance with WP:NPOV and I hope that it does not involve me ripping out large swathes of prose :) Elizium23 (talk) 01:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree that there is a lot to clean up here, but PinkNews was subject to a quite widely-participated RSN discussion last year and came back as "Generally reliable", so it is generally fine as a source (but not where it uses more provocative labels than do other WP:RS, of course). Newimpartial (talk) 01:39, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, while I can accept PinkNews as a source in this related topic, I believe we need to stipulate that WP:BIASED and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV will apply here, especially for the value-laden labels that have been tossed around, no weasel words. Elizium23 (talk) 01:43, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

To be clear, Pink News was found to be unreliable by an RSN discussion last year, which didn't sit well with editors who wanted to use it for articles specifically on this topic, where it has been very critical of one side of the debate, so a second RSN was opened shortly after (in which the editor in chief of Pink News himself weighed in to declare it an unbiased source that Wikipedia should allow) and the finding now stands as "There is rough consensus that PinkNews is generally reliable for factual reporting, but additional considerations may apply and caution should be used." Lilipo25 (talk) 12:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Certainly any labels that are disputed by other RS require attribution, along with terms like TERF that has been deemed inappropriate for Wikivoice in a precious RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 01:45, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

There are serious NPOV issues here; the page author is a declared alt-account so they certainly know about the issues here. I removed "It runs campaigns often with Neo Nazi groups" already as completely unsupported by the references, and the claims of the group being "thinly veiled" homophobia don't seem supported by references either. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:40, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, it has tons of OR, and the neo-Nazi thing failed verification for me. And it's POV. I'm not convinced this group is even notable and not a refbomb. The heavy reliance on PinkNews is also bad, since that is one outlet and there were serious questions about it as documented at WP:RSP. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm still checking, but based on [1] I don't think Graham Linehan is even related to this group. I'm very tempted to CSD-Hoax this article. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Wouldn't surprise me at this point. Good move draftifying. If not that, I would have supported AfD. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:17, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Misrepresentation and polarizing false-dichotomy based on misuse of primary sources

This (including sandboxed draft) is not an encyclopedia article, it is an activistic labeling/branding exercise that is using blatant WP:OR and misuse of WP:PRIMARY sourcing to blur all distinction and argument and motivation into a bogus "us vs. them". I'm going to analyze this in some detail.

• An Irish artist is not an expert source on LGBT+ matters, so his opinion is not relevant.
• Advocacy organization A which is diametrically opposed to the opinion of advocacy organization B, is not a reliable source for anything about B, and cannot be used to defame B and its members, who are in fact covered by WP:BLP policy. It's just hostile advocacy material (primary sourcing with a specific intent to attack reputation). WP cannot be abused as a smear-campaign weapon.
• When a news source uncritically just repeats and attributes such a claim from organization A, as a direct quote or a paraphrase, this is also primary sourcing (equivalent to interview material or to regurgitation of a press release), and does not constitute the WP:AEIS processes (analysis, evaluation, interpretation, and synthesis) that give rise to a secondary source, even if the article also contains secondary source material. Same goes for op-ed/investigative/exposé journalism that is heavily coloured by the viewpoint of the writer.
• Opposition to commingling of sexual-preference identity politics with gender identity politics is not a "phobia", which is a mental condition, nor "hate", which is intent to harm or to see harm done. It is simply a position to prevent/undo a confusing and conflict-generating mixture of two dissimilar things, in circumstances (mostly legal) in which the commingling may produce undesirable results.
  • If you actually read the published materials of most "gender-critical" LGB groups, you find that they are in fact supportive of trans rights, simply not as being defined as part of sexual freedom/preference/identity laws, or the sex/sexual-identity/sexual-preference category within a civil rights law, but rather as a separate protected class (like not commingling ethnicity/race with religion but maintaining them as separate classes of protection).
  • The central theme of all this material boils down to an objection to the confusion of sex and gender (two topics WP manages to separate rather cleanly, as do reliable sources, but which one subset of advocacy organizations continually confuses and advocates the further confusion of – like creationism, it is a popular and politicized but ultimately WP:FRINGE viewpoint).
  • "Gender-critical" groups take the position that "LGBT[+]" is an artificial category of orthogonal identity-politics matters, not an identity itself, and argue that gay, lesbian, and bisexual are identities, while transgender, nonbinary, or genderqueer are identities of a different kind; it's possible to be both gay and trans, and so on. "Trans" cannot be swapped for "gay" or vice versa, since they are identities of an entirely different nature (like "feline" and "domesticated", or "diesel-powered" and "pickup truck").
  • The LGBT+ umbrella evolved for socio-political convenience: most persons, typically on the far right, who are literally anti-gay/lesbian/bi are also anti-trans/NB/GQ because they can't really tell the difference and are coming usually from a religious scriptural perspective ("a marriage is between a man and a woman", yadda yadda). But when it comes to civil rights legislation and litigation, treating TG/NB/GQ as as subset of LGB produces direct conflicts within LGBTQ+, including a potential erosion of several hard-won legal protections afforded to LGB, and an erosion of L and G identities themselves, or so the argument goes. Related ones are that the experience of cis-women and trans-women (or -men) are not identical, that erasing a distinction between them harms the interests one to support those of the other one-sidedly (and that it is unnecessary, avoided by treating them as separate classes, not as a set and a subset). Another – usually argued only one-way, about trans-women and cis-women, i.e. an androphobic position, and here the phobia is actual – is that legal definitions that have no criteria for gender self-declaration and which also define trans-women as identical to cis-women, rather than a unique protected class, permits any man (including of course the proverbial scheming rapist) to enter any women-only space simply by claiming to identity as a woman.
  • This is just scratching the surface. There are also arguments about mental health, e.g. concern that misinterpretation of all gender dysphoria as self-declaration of an innate sense of gender identity (or of even not having one) may be misdiagnosing temporary effects and thus impede their resolution, especially among youths. And there are "English-language reform" advocacy efforts pulling in opposite directions. And religio-spiritual and natural-rights arguments normally associated with right-wing conservatives also being found within some branches of otherwise-leftist feminism (a "strange bedfellows" effect), and etc., etc.
  • In short, the convenience of the "LGBTQ+" umbrella can suddenly flip around into very inconvenient problems if the artificial and sometimes self-contradictory conglomeration of sexual-identity and gender-identity categories is maintained further than the actual usefulness of an LGBTQ+ umbrella, and mistaken for an identity itself to pit against an alleged enemy that is just LGB (or even just LG – anyone in this space older than about 35 will remember when getting "gay and lesbian rights" groups to even concede the existence of bisexual people, as an identity not as a confusion/problem, was a challenge). At its root, this is form of general semantics confusion, a failure to distinguish between different kinds and purposes of categorization and a confusion of abstract labels with the concrete things being labeled ("confusing the map with the territory", "mistaking the menu for the meal").
  • All of these matters involve nuanced positions, which form a wide range of positions (which may also change over time); they are not identical between all groups in the "gender-critical" or "trans-exclusionary" space. Nor is an organization or person who is gender-critical in one sense (e.g. with regard to a particular legal definition in a particular piece of legislation) necessarily gender-critical in any other sense, much less all of them. It is not Wikipedia's job to blur away such distinctions to make negative labeling easier, either for those who do not understand these nuances or who want to hide them for their own socio-political messaging purposes.
• Even the most cursory analysis of LGB Alliance materials (WP:ABOUTSELF) immediately shows that much of the above nuanced distinction applies to this organization. They are making specific legalistic arguments about conflation of gender with sex, and especially gender-identity as a subset of sexual identity/orientation, and the civil rights fallout this could have down the road for cis-gender LGB persons.
• Genuinely hateful/phobic claims made on online forums by persons saying they support, or seeming to agree with, this organization or that tell us nothing about the organizations or their positions. There are no socio-political stances that do not generate cranks and crackpots. E.g., in this very intra-LGBT+ dispute space there are actual transphobes (especially androphobic ones who are especially critical of traswomen, though I have yet to see any outright violent rhetoric from them). But there are also trans people and allies thereof literally calling for violence against even murder of alleged TERFs. Neither of these are generally representative viewpoints, and WP cannot falsify the facts about these matters to paint one side as hateful and another side as victims.
• "Counter-hateful" claims made against organizations that distort their actual views to demonize them are not sources we can use, and again tell us nothing about the actual viewpoint of the organization in question. WP does not repeat blatantly false information even when it is found in a source that would otherwise have seemed to be reliable, and which might still be on another topic. No source is categorically reliable for all things at all times.
• It's become increasingly clear that the gender-critical perspective is much more popular in the British Isles and certain other countries than in North America. WP articles in this overall topic area consistently and heavily skewing toward the American perspective on these matters is an unmistakable WP:BIAS problem.
• Wikipedia itself has no dog in this within-the-left, within-LGBTQ conflict (which is just one of almost innumerable dogmatic faction fights between different elements on the left). Our "job" is to neutrally describe these real-world debates, the parties engaged in them, and what their actual positions are, not what the demonized straw man versions of those positions are. We can cover the latter to some extent, with WP:DUE opposite-arguments balance, in an article about the labeling itself, e.g. at TERF, and in sections of articles on particular legislation where we are detailing support/opposition arguments, public reactions, and expert policy analysis. The article at hand here should accurately describe this organization's position, and probably not contain any pro/anti/-ist/-phobic/etc. labeling of any kind, since it is highly unlikely this can be found in actual secondary sourcing.

Anyway, this is just a start to some analysis of problems in this draft. In fairness to the principal author, these kinds of problems also exist in several other articles, because most articles in this entire category have been shaped by trans activists with a specific and extremist dogmatic position that anyone who disagrees with even a single element of their preferred LGBTQ+ vision must be a transphobic, anti-trans TERF. This is the kind of "one drop rule" thinking that is more common on the far right (another version is that everyone in favor of any form of socialization of anything is a communist). It's alarming to see this kind of false dichotomy fallacy, this type of ultra-polarization and "any disagreement = enemy heresy" thinking coming from the left, and being used to skew WP coverage, but I'll call it out when I find it, even if the stance in question happens to be popular among WP's largest editor demographic (namely, left-leaning urban and suburban Americans born in the 1980s or later).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I concur with SMcCandlish's entire analysis here. There was nothing even remotely encyclopedic about this article. From start to finish, it read as a politically-motivated attack on an organization which made claims wholly unsupported by even the biased sources used. It has been largely deleted by another editor as unpublishable, and I concur with that decision as well.

I also agree with SMcCandlish's final paragraph: In my opinion, this topic has been contaminated throughout Wikipedia by a currently popular POV and the use of Pink News as the primary source on it, and too many people (even admins) are afraid to call the extreme bias out for fear of being accused of being a transphobic "TERF". It is an endless battleground consistently won by those young, urban/suburban American males merely because they make up the majority of Wikipedia editors and not because they are making Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. Lilipo25 (talk) 03:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

That fear is wearing off for me; I get this bark pretty much 24/7 now, but the dog has no actual bite. (Then again, I'm not an admin, so my skin-thickness may be irrelevant.) It's just going to be a matter of identifying such problems, and making use of noticeboards more often. ArbCom has made it pretty clear they aren't ready yet to take a generalized case on this until the community avenues have been better exhausted (only a case that devolved into a pissing match between two individual editors, so they could focus on simpler conduct matters like civility, and dance away from the more complex issue of PoV-pushing behavior patterns). Editors are going to have to make increased use of WP:NPOVN, WP:NORN, WP:ANEW, and WP:AE. I'm not sure WP:ANI is going to be very useful because of the popularity-contest effect, though it is not as strong as some would believe (e.g. someone's "human sexuality and gender" T-ban got reinstated, and they got indeffed for breaching it, pretty recently; it just took several ANIs to get there).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I would advise you not to opine tangentially to the topics of our articles on their Talk pages, particularly concerning things you do not understand very well. You offer, for example, this: The central theme of all this material boils down to an objection to the confusion of sex and gender (two topics WP manages to separate rather cleanly, as do reliable sources, but which one subset of advocacy organizations continually confuses and advocates the further confusion of – like creationism, it is a popular and politicized but ultimately WP:FRINGE viewpoint). What Reliable Sources hold that LGBTQ+ organizations confuse sex with gender? As far as I know, no large or mainstream LGBTQ+ organization holds that view or any related viewpoint; it is "gender-critical" activists who argue that "gender does not really exist" or that gender identity claims are always based on underlying mental health issues, along with similar positions that really are WP:FRINGE.

If you are going to weigh in on what the article on this organization ought to contain if it is to be moved into main space, unsourced WP:OR vitriol about demonisation and "one drop rule"s do not really help other editors to assess the appropriate content and tone of this article, however much better you may feel after having purged your feelings about the topic in this way. Newimpartial (talk) 03:36, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

I think it's clear that I understand this topic area better than you by at least an order of magnitude; your difficulty in following the basic logic of source analysis and viewpoint identification, and difficulty separating your own views from what to write in WP's own voice, is not a problem on my end. Way more importantly (remember that WP is not credentialist and no editors' claims to expertise or that others lack it can actually be objectively verified), I have an encyclopedic, neutral-minded approach to it, grounded in facts not personal advocacy positions. FYI, I do not actually agree with a whole lot of the gender-critical platform, beyond some highly specific legal analyses that are particular to specific statute and caselaw situations (they do not generalize across jurisdictions). I do agree with the general assessment that the prime motivating factor behind this entire movement is androphobia (the "creepy men in skirts are trying to get into the women's locker room" fear; it's an undercurrent that flows throughout all this discourse, even when it's written by a gay male like Andrew Sullivan). But this has nothing to do with how I'm going to edit these articles. If someone injects exactly what I just expressed about this movement's connection to androphobia into any of these articles, on the basis of the kind of abuse of primary source material I covered above, I'll be the first to say this is not permissible in encyclopedia writing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Re: your difficulty in following the basic logic of source analysis and viewpoint identification, and difficulty separating your own views from what to write in WP's own voice, is not a problem on my end - that's a lovely ad hominem, but one that has nothing to do with my editing history or this article, so I'm unsure what you intend to accomplish with it.

Since you still haven't answered my question about your absurd and unsourced claim above, I'll assume that you don't actually have any grounding for it apart from the unreliable sources you must have read to make that "observation" in the first place. Newimpartial (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Advice

Oh dear... I just discovered the existence of this draft article and I am not at all surprised to see that things have come to this. The problem here is that there are no substantial non-POV sources to lean on. Every source will either take this organisation's extremely controversial claims at face value or very much the opposite. As such we have almost no non-contradictory sources to allow even a one sentence stub saying what the nature of the subject even is without using terms that should be avoided like "claims to be". Personally, I have a some very definite expectation as to how this is going to shake out but, of course, other people have equally definite expectations in the other direction and none of us can predict the future.

This is before we get into the opacity around questions like: To what extent are the various international groups linked? What are their actual activities? To what extent do the various groups exist as anything more than Twitter accounts? and so on.

My advice is not to get too heated here. I don't think that there is any possibility for this becoming an article in the near future so there is no point in fighting over it. Maybe once their application for charitable status is decided this will give us something to work with but who knows how much longer that will take. In the meantime, I don't think there is any point in trying to develop the article much further or submit it for review. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Resurrected

This has been recreated in article space: LGB Alliance. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• There is currently a discussion about it on the Articles for Deletion page [2]. Lilipo25 (talk) 21:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Some available references

Here are some references available on LGB Alliance.

--Trinkt der Bauer und fährt Traktor (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Suggest you cross-reference these with reliable sources to determine which are stronger/weaker. Battleofalma (talk) 12:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

This is the list of references, copied and pasted, from the article Trinkt der Bauer created which was swiftly deleted for being wildly against NPOV and clearly created just to push a particular agenda against the article subject. Trying to get the same bias into this article by copying and pasting into the talk page the list of anti-LGB sources you compiled should frankly not be allowed. Lilipo25 (talk) 00:24, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

This accusation of bad faith is unacceptable. Urve (talk) 22:52, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

The entire article was sent back to Draft and then swiftly deleted for being created in bad faith. No part of it - including the reference list - should then be recreated here. Lilipo25 (talk) 03:06, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

Once again, I don't like where this is going. In three sentences, we have weasel words and we have pejorative terms coming from who knows where? Elizium23 (talk) 19:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I opted for brevity because the variety of groups referring to LGB Alliance as transphobic is quite extensive. Pull quotes are included in the citations and all the sources are accessible to read. Please be specific about which phrases you think are weasel words. Battleofalma (talk) 20:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Removed Speedy-G10

I have removed the CSD-G10 tag. A newly created article that duplicates a draftified article does not meet the criterion, inconvenient as that may seem. Newimpartial (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, are you an administrator? Elizium23 (talk) 20:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The removal of speedy tags is not confined to administrators. Any editor who is not the creator of a page may do so. I did not create the page; in fact, removing the tag was my first edit to the article. Newimpartial (talk) 20:37, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

'Failed verification'

Hi

Both here and in a previous draft of the article almost the entire text save for two sentences have been removed for 'failed verification'. It would be helpful to be able to progress to understand what the editors @Elizium23: and @Power~enwiki: who removed the content mean by this. Is this referring to:

1. Not being able to find the information included in the article in the references
2. The editors do not think the references used are reliable
3. Something else

Thanks

--Trinkt der Bauer und fährt Traktor (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

None of the sources you have been using for this verify that the group is considered homophobic or biphobic. There have been many other examples of your use of sources that do not support the text as well as POV text and unreliable sources. This is evident at Draft talk:LGB Alliance and in the history of Draft:LGB Alliance. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

That isn't strictly true of all sources for this article, however. The Independent and The Guardian both document that various commentators (including Woman's Place UK) consider the LGB Alliance to be transphobic or "trans-exclusionist". Newimpartial (talk) 20:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Crossroads:

Thanks, please could you expand on a couple of your points to help with the discussion

• Could you define what you mean by 'verify'? Several of the sources quote people and groups describing the group as transphobic, biphobic and/or homophobic e.g 1, 2, 3
• Please could you tell me which of the sources you consider to be unreliable?

Thanks very much

--Trinkt der Bauer und fährt Traktor (talk) 20:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, you appear not to have read my comment closely; I never denied that they've been called transphobic.

Trinkt, I just checked again and none of those three sources verify that this group has been called homophobic or biphobic. Persistently misrepresenting sources in a discretionary sanctions topic area will lead to a report at WP:AE. Considering how long you say you've been around, you know not to do that. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Fair enough. I didn't read the edit closely enough. My bad. Newimpartial (talk) 20:57, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Crossroads:, these references which were included in the original draft say it explicitly Scottish National Party MP Mhairi Black tweeted: “It is absolutely homophobic to oppose LGBT+ people having the same legal rights as straight people.1, the LGB Alliance has been labelled homophobic and biphobic itself, 2. Thanks, --Trinkt der Bauer und fährt Traktor (talk) 20:54, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Heading "opposing gender identity instruction on schools" ?

The issue at stake is, is using the language preferred by the subject of the article correct for the heading, or should the heading use the same language that the independent, reliable sources use in designating the policy in question. My own opinion is that WP:NPOV requires that the RS language be used, but obviously opinions differ, and consensus is required. Newimpartial (talk) 01:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

You are deflecting from the point; the language preferred by the subject is not relevant either way, nor is what the policy as a whole has been called by irrelevant sources. That this group opposes "LGBTQ+" education is 100% unsourced and your WP:Original research. Stick to what sources say the LGB Alliance opposes. Saying "gender identity" isn't even POV; it is exactly what they oppose in education. Why obfuscate that? Crossroads ^-talk- 05:06, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I know that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a positive policy, but the usual practice on WP is to use the generally-held, NPOV designations for what pressure groups oppose rather than their own biased language; I will wait for others to weigh in on this before trying to fix it. In the mean time, I have tried to reduce the POV language within the section. Newimpartial (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Newimpartial here. We should follow the language used by the reliable sources. To adopt the preferred language of a pressure group into Wikipedia's own voice is to accept and tacitly endorse the ideological baggage that it carries. That is not a neutral approach. When we write about, say, white supremacist organisations, to pick a rather extreme example for the purpose of clear illustration, we do not credulously adopt their preferred terminology and euphemisms (e.g. "race realism", "white genocide", etc) when speaking in Wikipedia's own voice. Instead we explain that they use these terms, and what they actually mean, referenced to reliable sources. The same general approach should apply here. Getting the specifics right might be tricky but the principle here is not. Crossroads is right that we cannot say something like "opposes "LGBTQ+" education" without RS sources to support it but with valid sources we absolutely can. And, yes, if that is what the majority of reliable sources say then it can and should take precedence over the group's own claims to the contrary, although we should still note that they deny it or describe it differently. --DanielRigal (talk) 16:17, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think we disagree that much. I never argued to adopt the group's language for its own sake. The whole problem is that there is no source saying 'the LGB Alliance opposes LGBTQ+ education', so Wikipedia can't make that claim. Simple as that. And it's not correct to compare "gender identity" to false racist euphemisms. "Gender identity" is not a euphemism but a mainstream term and precisely identifies what they oppose. I see no reason to obfuscate this. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:10, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

@Newimpartial and Crossroads: I am responding to a request at WP:RFP for full protection of this article due to the disagreement between the two of you. You haven't reached the level of actual edit warring yet, but you are both established editors and know better than this. I am glad to see you are discussing here; this is a gentle reminder to keep that up until consensus or compromise is reached, and not to revert each other in the meantime. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

References removed?

How do we feel about this edit? I was thinking about partially reverting it as it removes several references but I wasn't sure how much to restore or how best to do it. Maybe it was somewhat overcited before but the references seem valid and the removal seems overdone. Maybe we want some of those references back? Maybe they should be moved into the body and out of the intro? What do we think is best? --DanielRigal (talk) 22:05, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I made the edit; it was more than "somewhat overcited" before - it was in full Citation Overkill WP:OVERCITE. What's more, the overkill appeared to be a very clear example of what is described on that page under "In-article conflict" thusly: In controversial topics, sometimes editors will stack citations that do not add additional facts or really improve article reliability, in an attempt to "outweigh" an opposing view when the article covers multiple sides of an issue or there are competing claims. Putting six citations on the opinion that the group is transphobic after only one for the opposing opinion is stacking citations that add no additional facts to give that opinion undue weight. One citation would in fact be sufficient; I have left three.Lilipo25 (talk) 22:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

My own preference in such cases generally is to have abundant references in the body rather than the lede. The caveat I would offer in this case is that if most of the available RS agree with a certain characterization, then it would be UNDUE and FALSEBALANCE to exclude them as redundant, since it could affect the reader's perception of the available sourcing. Newimpartial (talk) 22:36, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that this promotes a false balance, but not only because of the perception issue. The notion that having six citations is "undue weight" when that is an accurate reflection of the reliable sources is bizarre. One would not be sufficient, and neither is three. My concern is especially that one of the sources removed was entirely unlike the others—a scholarly publication. If one reads further down on the page for WP:OVERCITE, they will come across WP:CITEMERGE, which seems like a reasonable solution rather than removal. Urve (talk) 00:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The sourced sentence specifically said that LGBT organizations called LGB Alliance transphobic. The "scholarly publication" did not in any way source that quote, as it was not from an LGBT organization and discussed census data from individual respondents. Citations must support the facts they are attached to. And there is nothing at all "bizarre" about adhering to the rules of Wikipedia editing, in this case Citation Overkill. Three sources saying the same thing are more than sufficient. The point of citations is not to show how many sources say a fact, but to show that it has been stated by a Reliable Source and can thus be included in the article.

Newimpartial is once again transparently skirting the One-Way I-Ban which forbids them from having any interaction with me (due to past HOUNDING and bullying) by jumping into my conversations with other editors to side against me, but indenting their responses to pretend they are in response to the person I am responding to. I would very much like this to stop. Lilipo25 (talk) 01:19, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

While you may now justify the removal of the sources in any way you wish, its original removal was not at all because of some qualm with it not being an "LGBT organization". If it were, you would have said so in the summary, or added "and scholars" to the article so that it could be properly attributed. Instead, you removed the source altogether, and are reverting anyone that adds it back "per talk page". The justification was obviously because of your interpretation of what constitutes balance.

Anyway. Citation overkill is not a rule. It is, as the page says, an WP:ESSAY that has basically zero prescriptive value. And I don't understand what your iban with someone else has to do with me or what I said. Urve (talk) 01:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

That WAS the original reason for the removal of that particular source - I removed three, following the guidelines to keep the most relevant and reliable. That one had to go because it did not support the sentence it was attached to. This isn't really a debatable point: sources must say what the fact they are supporting says. It did not. At all. It therefore did not belong there, and you can be as snarky about it as you want. Lilipo25 (talk) 01:52, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Very well. This does not change the fact that the removal of the other sources was unnecessary, promotes a false balance, and that citation overkill is not a rule. Urve (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Purpose

In the infobox we currently give the group's self-described purpose: "Lesbian, gay, and bisexual advocacy".

However, several available sources indicate that they perceive the group's primary purpose to relate to transgender issues: "LGB Alliance, a group formed in 2019 to oppose changes to the GRA and stop trans-inclusive teaching in schools" (ABC), "anti-trans hate group LGB Alliance" (Pink News), "organisations campaigning against equality in Scotland ... Take for example the LGB Alliance" (The National).

I'm not saying we should take critics' word as gospel, but equally is it balanced to let the group's self-description sit in the infobox when multiple sources assert a different point of view?

Might it be best to take the position that any brief description is going to be controversial, so we should simply not list a purpose in the infobox and leave it to the lead to explain? TSP (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. This is tough one because the views of the group are not really within touching distance at all on the most fundamental nature of the group. It says it is one thing and its critics say that this is an entirely false description intended to hide what they think it really is. I think that removing the description from the infobox makes sense. If we have to have one then it should probably be something bland and uncontroversial like "Pressure group" or "Advocacy group" but that is so uninformative that this is probably no better than just omitting it completely. As you say, the intro can explain it better. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:32, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the best course may be to remove the "purpose" from the infobox. Newimpartial (talk) 01:51, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

My reading of the template documentation suggests that just "advocacy" is what the parameter calls for (but not more than that). I might be wrong though. If that reading's correct, I would be fine with that being included. Urve (talk) 02:16, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

"Views" vs "Campaigns"

I've changed the "Views" section, recently renamed from "Campaigns", back to "Campaigns". This is an encyclopedia article about a campaigning group, not about an individual. For our encyclopedic purpose, I'd suggest that it is more relevant to report on the group's noteworthy actions; rather than try to provide an exhaustive run-down of everything they believe, which seems like it would end up producing an article that was a copy of the group's website. TSP (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I disagree: organizations also have views, not just individuals. Their important viewpoints are very relevant to an article about any organization, and not all of them constitute campaigns.Lilipo25 (talk) 14:09, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

In addition, not everything you are describing as "campaigns" has been one. For example, I see no evidence that they have campaigned in any way against pharmaceutical treatment of children. Bev Jackson stated that they welcomed the Keira Bell verdict, which is giving an opinion, but they didn't campaign for it or to change the law. Lilipo25 (talk) 14:31, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

According to the Telegraph article, this view on Bell is only attributed to "the pair"--Jackson and Harris--not to the group. Regardless, views or campaigning are fine; views is probably more informative, and we should probably err on the side of including more information than less (which "views" would allow). Urve (talk) 23:06, 15 February 2021 (UTC)