User talk:Crossroads/2019, 3rd quarter

Breasts

Hey, Crossroads1. I couldn't help but see your edit to the Breast article and then look at your contributions since we are both currently debating at Talk:Woman and are interested in similar topics. I see that you are currently working on breast content in your sandbox. For the "this holds true across cultures" part, I would word it as "this holds true for different cultures" since the source is WP:Primary and looks at four cultures. Also, as addressed in the Breast fetishism article, men's sexual attraction to breasts are debated. A number of authors do discuss society having influenced modern-day sexual attraction to breasts, since there is some difference with regard to history and it's not an object of sexual desire in some cultures. I'm sure you will want to work on the Breast fetishism article.

I want to state something about the following piece as well: "In women, stimulation of the nipple results in activation of the brain's genital sensory cortex. This explains why many women find nipple stimulation arousing and why some women are able to orgasm by nipple stimulation alone." I'd change "results in activation of the brain's genital sensory cortex" to "seems to result in activation of the brain's genital sensory cortex" since the research is thus far only based on Komisaruk et al.'s research and the source uses the word seem. And I'd change "This explains why" to "This is one reason why" or "This may be one reason why" since, again, this is thus far only based on Komisaruk et al.'s research, and other research indicates different reasons that women get pleasure from nipple stimulation. I'd also add "the same region of the brain activated by stimulation of the clitoris, vagina, and cervix" (or similar) in parentheses after "genital sensory cortex" to briefly explain to readers what that means. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:12, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the input. I hadn't yet finished adding refs at that time; but I have changed it to say "a variety of cultures" so I am not making an implicit claim of universality, but it is true in many parts of the world and even includes (some?) foragers. Society has an impact, but I think it is implausible and against the evidence that attraction to breasts is totally learned, no matter how much some social theorists wish it were so. Of course, Western culture does view exposed breasts differently than tribes where women are topless, as I said society does have an impact. I followed your other suggestions (although I think "may be" is enough hedging instead of "may be one reason why"). However putting "seem" may not have been necessary as the statements regarding brain wiring like my statement were not hedged in this way. Crossroads1 (talk) 03:28, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Functional and Dysfunctional Sexual Behavior (Elsevier, 2007)

Regarding this, I don't care that it's been removed, but what part of it states that sexual orientation is learned? I'm not sure if I read that book before. Also, keep in mind that when sources talk about the social aspect with regard to sexual orientation, they don't always mean learned behavior. In fact, in the vast majority of cases these days, it's not what they mean since scientists generally agree that sexual orientation is not learned. They mean some interaction with social environment, a nature and nurture type of thing. We can see in the Nature versus nurture article that the article doesn't only talk about learning with respect to environmental influence. Scientists think that sexual orientation has some complex interplay with biology and social environment, but they are definitely with the belief that biology contributes significantly more so to the development of sexual orientation. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:40, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say here, but see his summary on page 376: [1] The source is clearly out of step with scientific consensus. I recognized this source as it is the same one I removed from the article Human sexuality. Crossroads1 (talk) 21:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Well, part of the source's title is "A Synthesis of Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology." The author is clearly putting a personal spin on the matter, and that includes quite clearly stating "I." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Postmodern philosophy

I notice that you've referred to Postmodern philosophy several times at Talk:Woman. The way that you've used it makes me suspect that you mean it as a shorthand for "all this nonsense that's come up in the last couple of decades" rather than a reference to the actual field.

As I understand it, the field could be summarized as "I think you'll find that it's more complicated than that" or maybe "I'm not certain what's true, but I can prove that the story you're telling is false". (In one sense, postmodernism is a sort of scientific approach, since in science, it's okay to tell people what's wrong with their ideas even if you haven't got anything better to replace it with.) The popularity of (actual) postmodern philosophy certainly annoyed the traditional philosophers back in the day (because which of us like having people poke holes in our worldview, especially when our careers and self-identities are wrapped up in being smart and logical?), but it's not just some internet insult, and I think it would be good not to use that term in discussions on Wikipedia as a synonym for nonsense. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree that "postmodernism" is not a synonym for nonsense but has specific meanings. I was using it as defined in our article on postmodernism because it is foundational to gender studies. I do regret having used it so casually as I can see how it gives the wrong impression. For example Jordan Peterson and other conservatives use it as a snarl word; I am liberal and think this is an appropriation (hah) of legitimate criticism (most of which is by liberals) for political ends. That is why I made this comment. An excellent starting point for critique of postmodernism and allied ideas which I recommend is What Science Offers the Humanities by Edward Slingerland. [2] This is the kind of angle I am coming from.

You state that it is 'sort of a scientific approach.' This isn't really accurate; science relies heavily on testability, falsification, and quantification. On the other hand, you are right that science can find what is wrong even if it is unsure what is right. Critics of science often overlook that it is non-dogmatic and all about complexity, rejects overgeneralizations, and so on.

It's certainly okay to point out what's wrong even if one don't know what's right, but where postmodernism took a wrong turn is taking skepticism and relativism too far.

So, I used the term correctly, but will probably be more careful doing so in the future to avoid misunderstanding. Crossroads1 (talk) 03:17, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

As you noted, one quality that post-modernism seems to have in common with proper science is that post-modernism seems to spend a good deal of time telling the other branches of philosophy that they're wrong. "Oh, you think that such-and-such is true? Well, that isn't true for my hairy green ball thing, so your grand theory is wrong."

I suppose that we should wander back over to Woman some time to add some well-sourced information. I've been feeling like taking WP:TNT to the ==Terminology== section, but I'm pretty sure that's an over-reaction that I should resist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing, I am not entirely sure what is meant by the green ball thing, maybe it was just a random hypothetical. The section you mention does not warrant TNT. RS in the vast majority of academic fields do not define woman any differently than people in general, so very little or no length should be given to philosophical flights of fancy, postmodern or otherwise, per WP:DUE. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:35, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Note the paucity of citations, the rather mediocre quality of the existing citations, and the strangeness of some of the contents. Is a list of coming-of-age ceremonies really "terminology"? Is it necessary to explain what distaff means? And then consider what's not there, e.g., any explanation of biological sex or gender identity, or any content that suggests that different contexts might need somewhat different definitions (e.g., sometimes "a woman" includes any female over the age of majority, but sometimes "a woman" includes any married female regardless of age).

(You can find information about the "hairy green ball thing" at Google Books.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not saying it is perfect, but I don't think TNT is warranted. You can of course edit however and hope it sticks, but given the controversial subject, that may be a bad strategy. WP:UNDUE will be a serious concern, and it will be necessary to sample a broad range of fields, including medicine (which is enormous), psychology, and economics. Just focusing on gender studies or cultural anthropology won't cut it. Thanks for explaining the green ball thing. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:50, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm a long-time participant in WP:MED, and the thing is, I don't think that (non-psych) medicine spends much time caring about what constitutes "a woman". There's some attention to "what's a biological adult" and a lot of attention to "what's a biological female", but not exactly to "what's a woman". I don't think I could produce a WP:MEDRS ideal source on the subject of womanhood. PubMed gives me just three reviews during the last five years that mention the word womanhood, and none are definitions; searching for definition woman gives me a few hundred, but they're on other subjects (e.g., "Severe neurological impairment: a review of the definition"). The MeSH definition is "Human females as cultural, psychological, sociological, political, and economic entities", which suggests that the NLM thinks "human females" are a biomedical subject, but "women" aren't.

If you've seen review articles or med school textbooks that discuss women as a biomedical concept, I'd love to hear about them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

The MeSH definition would certainly be fitting to emphasize. Let's just not give undue weight to postmodern philosophy (in the actual sense), or try to divorce gender from biology. Society did come up with the concept of gender (as distinct from particular gender norms) based on the fact that there are two mostly distinct physical types of humans. Woman and female human have near total overlap, and exceptions do not disprove this. For example, I have seen plenty of activists follow Fausto-Sterling and use intersex conditions to "prove" that gender has nothing to do with sex and that sex is a spectrum and a social construct, etc. This is why I am leery of your proposal, but you are free to try. -Crossroads- (talk) 15:42, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

All definitions are social constructs. Otherwise, we're all Humpty Dumpty and saying "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less", and nobody knows what we mean. You'd hardly be informed if I told you that I was skating to the refrigerator to exchange some cats, when I meant to indicate that I'd be walking to the store to buy some milk.

So, sure, "sex" is a social construct. That means people have gotten together and decided that (human) males are defined as people with XY chromosomes, certain bits of anatomy, certain hormones, etc., and not as slightly taller people with a pronounced tendency to go bald on top – even though, on average, those are the same people. That the definition of sex is socially constructed doesn't mean that the definition is divorced from objective reality. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

It is silly to claim that sex could have been defined ("socially constructed") based on height or tendency to go bald. Definitions are not arbitrary, and such a definition is backwards. It is the XY chromosomes, first detected by the penis they built, that created the male "type" of human. That is why biologists define sex by chromosomes and most everyone else defines it by easily detected anatomy. Some people are missing a limb, but that doesn't mean that "humans have two legs" is a social construct. Social constructions are usually brought up by people who say that our constructs are arbitrary and historically contingent. However, objective reality sharply limits the kind of definitions that spread via cultural learning/evolution. Ideas that misfit reality as science discovers it will die out. -Crossroads- (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Biologists don't define "sex" according to chromosomes. They define specifically chromosomal sex (for XY-type systems) or genetic sex (for animals that have sex-determining genes but not on a separate chromosome) that way, but "sex" is normally taken to be a multi-factorial and not-entirely-binary thing in biology, and especially in human biology. Merely having (or not) a particular chromosome doesn't always determine sex, and sometimes genetics are irrelevant. For example, in alligators, there are no significant genetic differences between males and females; any egg can develop into either sex, and the nesting site temperature determines the outcome. In bees, the difference between male and females is that the females have twice as many of exactly the same chromosomes. When biologists do define sex in a single-characteristic way, it's based on the size of the gametes produced, not the chromosomes. And even that runs into complications when you look at sequential hermaphroditism, which produce both types of gametes in the course of their lives.

"Humans have two legs" is not a definition. "Humans are the creatures that have two legs" would be a definition (one that would also include birds and kangaroos, so let's hope that's not the entire definition). Of course, unless you assume that people are largely stupid or that everyone delights in making up definitions with no practical value, then that's not likely to be the definition that any society would construct.

I realize that the idea of social construction is often tossed about by people who have an agenda, just like postmodern gets used as a snarl word. But that doesn't mean that you and I can't use the term precisely. In this case, society has constructed some definitions. Usually, those definitions line up very closely as woman meaning those a human who can (probably) give birth, and man as a human who definitely can't. I also agree with you that socially constructed definitions can have some arbitrary or contingent aspect to them. If you're drawing a line, you have to draw it somewhere, and different people/cultures have actually drawn the man/woman line in slightly different places. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

About your reverting my edition in Empathy article

Hello!

You've recently reverted my edition in Empathy article. I inform you that I used the phrase from the cited article: "The results showed a small overall advantage in favour of females on emotion recognition tasks (d = 0.19)." ([3]) The word "small" is used the cited research. Why then you deleted it? The Terrible Mutant Hamster (talk) 01:38, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi User:The Terrible Mutant Hamster, I did make a mistake in this case. People sometimes editorialize if a study says something they don't like, and I assumed that was the case here. It would have been good to say in your edit summary that the abstract said that. -Crossroads- (talk) 01:33, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! The fault is partly mine, I agree. The Terrible Mutant Hamster (talk) 01:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

With regard to abstracts, The Terrible Mutant Hamster, Crossroads and I should keep Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)#Don't just cite the abstract in mind. It states, "When searching for biomedical sources, it is wise to skim-read everything available, including abstracts of papers that are not freely readable, and use that to get a feel for what reliable sources are saying. However, when it comes to actually writing a Wikipedia article, it is misleading to give a full citation for a source after reading only its abstract; the abstract necessarily presents a stripped-down version of the conclusions and omits the background that can be crucial for understanding exactly what the source says, and may not represent the article's actual conclusions. To access the full text, the editor may need to visit a medical library or ask someone at the WikiProject Resource Exchange or WikiProject Medicine's talk page to either provide an electronic copy or read the source and summarize what it says; if neither is possible, the editor may need to settle for using a lower-impact source." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, I understand that, thank you. However, I inform you that when the cited article's abstract contradicts (there is an obvious difference between "significant" and "small statistically significant") the information from Wikipedia article, it means that the editor made Wikipedia:Good faith error. The Terrible Mutant Hamster (talk) 19:47, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Declaration of other accounts

In the light of your account only becoming "active" in June 2019, along with the facts that your edits appear to show significant overlap with a sock puppet master that you are already aware of, along with the unusual "startup editing pattern" for your account, could you please confirm any and all other accounts you have created or edited from on the English Wikipedia.

If you prefer to declare other accounts privately to an Arbcom member for some reason, that would be legitimate per WP:SOCK#NOTIFY, but given recent events it would be reasonable for you to state that this has happened. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 11:27, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Fæ, I literally have no idea what "sock puppet master" you refer to. I have NO other accounts; your comment here borders on a personal attack and violates WP:AGF and WP:BITE. Yes, I do due research on Wiki policies. Your description of my editing is a distortion. If you had any real evidence you would be going to WP:SPI, but instead you can only cast aspersions. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:48, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Accusation of CANVASsing

Please distinguish between a policy-compliant neutral notification, like this one, and canvassing. Not only was my notice neutrally worded with respect to both discussions, but as your "side" has characterized the discussion (inaccurately) as a conflict between lesbians and trans people, people interested in BOTH lesbian and Trans issues are included in the LGBT topic area. I would of course be happy for those in the Feminism subject area to he notified as well, or the gender studies topic, but I went with the sharp ends of the stick as it were.

In any event, please don't make unsubstantiated and invalid accusations of canvassing as you did here, since they violate CIVIL and poison the discourse of a DS topic area. 11:55, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

User:Newimpartial, please sign your name to your comments. I leave to the readers to judge if that is canvassing. I know, truthfully, that for me a similar action was cautioned against on grounds of appearing to canvass. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:52, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Alert

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in living or recently deceased people, and edits relating to the subject (living or recently deceased) of such biographical articles. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in (a) GamerGate, (b) any gender-related dispute or controversy, (c) people associated with (a) or (b), all broadly construed. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

--Fæ (talk) 12:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't see what this is supposed to mean. I am arguing for caution on BLPs. Gamergate has nothing to do with this. -Crossroads- (talk) 00:57, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

The gamergate DS area includes gender-related issues, broadly defined. Just so you know. Newimpartial (talk) 01:06, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I'll respect it, but that sounds awfully broad and vague. I don't know if they were thinking of transgender related issues at that time. -Crossroads- (talk) 01:11, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't want to bore you with the history, but there was a "Sexology" DS area, they ruled on Gamergate, then they expanDed the sanctions area for Gamergate to cover everything in between, very definitely including Trans issues. Newimpartial (talk) 01:16, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

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Interesting. It could tell that I had edited a lot of sexology-related articles. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:00, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Envirotecture

is not a company but a form of environmental architecture. it is a new technique to integrate the human experience in designing environments and the seminal work is the textbook by Philip Thiel People, Paths and Purposes University of Washington Press, 1996. ISBN 0-295-97521-0 While I may not be the best at writing articles, and tis is my second, the other was deleted as being a personal remembrance as opposed to a published third party report of something, this is a factual form of art, not a company or advertisement.

https://findwords.info/term/envirotecture

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41372623?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Journal of the ... Vol. 129, No. 5... 'ENVIROTECTURE'...

Journal of the Royal Society of Arts

JOURNAL ARTICLE 'ENVIROTECTURE' - THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SPACE AND PEOPLE HUGH CASSON Journal of the Royal Society of Arts Vol. 129, No. 5302 (SEPTEMBER 1981), pp. 628-638 Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce https://www.jstor.org/stable/41372623 Page Count: 11 Topics: Brick buildings, Automobiles, Visual literacy, Wisdom, Snobbery, Typographic fonts, Architectural design, Staircases

There is a company which advertises under this name, but it is not the subject of this article. i didnt even know it existed until i started to google searching for it because you said this was an advertisement, it is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CodySteed (talk • contribs) 17:27, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

This didn't stop envirotecture from getting G11'ed. -Crossroads- (talk) 03:57, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

A Barnstar for you

		The Civility Barnstar
		For responding so reasonably to my unfair (and quite wrong/stupid) accusation ar AfD. Nick Moyes (talk) 05:31, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks so much! -Crossroads- (talk) 05:53, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

Espouse sentiments considered

I suppose that’s moving in the direction suggested by the recent change at LABEL, and I thanked you for it, but really it doesn’t go far enough imho, as it simply lays itself open for a {{whom}}. Also, wasn’t WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV mentioned as part of the MOS change? If so, this is still in WikiVoice, although it gives kind of a nod in the general direction of ATTPOV without actually going through with it. If it was intentional, in hopes of staking out a reasonable, already-compromise position that might pass muster with oppositional viewpoints, I’m not sure you’ll ever get credit for that, and the opposition will just start closer in. Not sure how I would have handled it; probably no differently. We’ll see what happens. Mathglot (talk) 02:48, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Hi, Mathglot, I've followed up with this. I agree that even more change in this direction would be good. -Crossroads- (talk) 01:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Death of JonBenét Ramsey

I think you made some valid points in earlier edits. Your most recent mass reversion, however, is baffling. I made 3 or 4 additions, using an A&E documentary as a source, quoting known experts in the field. Did I understand you correctly that you thought I used self-published sources?

Vcuttolo (talk) 01:11, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I was mistaken about the source. I explain the issues in more detail here. -Crossroads- (talk) 03:55, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Question/comment/rebuke around Xq28 and WP:synthesis.

Hello, I would like to ask a few questions and make a rebuke to your removal of a section me and another editor worked on on the page Xq28 given I have my questions about the applicability of the reasons for removal you've given. I doubted my sanity for a moment given I doesn't appear to violate WP:synthesis as claimed.

Let me try to explain:

Let me quote directly from the study: "In contrast to linkage studies that found substantial association of sexual orientation with variants on the X-chromosome (8, 23), we found no excess of signal (and no individual genome-wide significant loci) on the X-chromosome (fig. S4)."

(Source 8 being the Hamer study, the main study that gave basis to Xq28's relation to Homosexuality at the top of the Xq28 page, and which the subsequent studies on Xq28 where also based on), giving direct statement this study could not reproduce Hamers findings in relation to Xq28 (as it could not in the entire chromosome it's located in, and is specific in noting it could not reproduce Hamers Findings which where solely around Xq28), given that is the only such relevant relation in Hamers findings to begin with.

This is, as such not a new conclusion on my end at all and is directly apparent from the research and as such does not appear to be in violation of WP:Synthesis at all and as such the section appears to have been removed for invalid reasons.

If I am wrong, I would like to know, with an explanation so I can avoid the same mess-up in the future, and If I am correct here I would appreciate it if you restore the section which you've removed (in that scenario) for invalid reason. Kind regards from me. V60club (talk) 19:09, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi V60club, thanks for bringing this to my attention. I had done a "find" for Xq28 in the study and did not see it, and now I see I did it wrong. I was quick to remove it because the editor who originally added it has been known to inaccurately represent sources, which he had still done in this case, as you commented on his talk page. [4] I have now restored the material, but rewrote the description to even more closely represent the study. (I dealt with this same study on another article.) Thanks for catching the inaccuracy in the first place. -Crossroads- (talk) 21:11, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I had a feeling that is what happened here with the page search on Xq28. I may suck at English but I do take great care in making sure what I wrote was accurate, which is exactly why I replaced the other guy's piece and made sure the information was accurate and why I commented on his talk page. - Sorry if I came across a bit harsh trying to explain in the previous post here on your talk page, I am not a native English speaker and I struggle with bringing forth tone a bit sometimes. Anyway, Your wording is a lot better and I really appreciate that you fixed it up and made it better then I could've written it. I do suggest, given the relevance to the article maybe explicitly noting on top of what you already put down that "finding nothing in the X Chromosome" also includes Xq28, which the page is about, as that may not be directly clear to readers right now. What are your thoughts on this? And lastly, thank you for your warm welcome to the English Wikipedia. Very much appreciated. V60club (talk) 01:14, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

V60club, your English is quite good. I have now edited it to mention Xq28 specifically. You were doing the right thing by checking sources and rewriting accordingly. -Crossroads- (talk) 12:54, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Heya, that is a lot clearer for readers of the page, thanks for editing that. Thank you for the compliment by the way, both on my English and checking sources and rewriting accordingly, I do my best. :) Wilburg22 - The insufferable potato! (Click here for my talk page!) 20:53, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Uranian poetry

Hi Crossroads1, would it be possible for you to take a look at Uranian poetry and the associated biographies of poets (this one, e.g.)? They seem heavily based on Timothy D'Arch Smith's Love in earnest: some notes on the lives and writings of English 'Uranian' poets from 1889 to 1930. D'Arch, who coined the term "Uranian poetry"[5], was apparently a contributor to the International Journal of Greek Love[6]. I am really not inclined to request his book through inter-library loan, but the available google snippets[7] seem highly suspect. Cheers, gnu57 19:32, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi gnu57, I very much appreciate you pointing this out. I really think you are on to something.

I am also unable to obtain a copy of Love in earnest, and I can't even see snippets on Google. I did, however, find this. Between that book's quotes of D'Arch Smith, and that book itself, it is clear that these two authors not only clearly distinguish between pederasty/"boy-love" and homosexuality, but take a positive view of pederasty. In fact, that book's website looks very suspect, both reliability-wise and otherwise. I also recognize it as one of the sources indef-blocked account Haiduc used when he wrote the old version of the pederasty article. I did check authorship stats on the Uranian poetry article and a couple of the individual poets, but didn't see any significant authorship by Haiduc or other accounts that stood out as suspicious.

For the poets themselves, we'll probably have to evaluate them one by one. I looked at a few of them; at least based on a cursory impression, some appear notable and others do not. Authorship varied as well, and it would not be surprising if some of the articles were in fact written by Haiduc or similar accounts.

For the Uranian poetry article itself, deletion is likely warranted. The only two sources I found so far that use the term Uranian poetry as the article does are the two sketchy authors I mentioned above. While some of the poets appear notable, the idea that they constitute a group called "Uranian poets" does not appear to be.

For short articles with few references and low traffic, I find PROD is less of a hassle than AfD. If that fails, I then go for AfD usually.

Thanks again for pointing this out. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:24, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Correction: I have since found a couple GBooks sources that rather briefly talk about Uranian poetry, but whether it is enough to get it over GNG is questionable. I haven't thoroughly looked for sources yet however. Note that many sources use "Uranian" in the manner of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, even using the phrase Uranian poetry independently, but they are not referring to the specific concept D'Arch Smith is. Such a source would seem inapplicable - for us to tie together disparate uses of the phrase with no clear definition would be original research. -Crossroads- (talk) 04:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

For John Gambril Nicholson, my PROD was removed, but I have nominated it for AfD. -Crossroads- (talk) 06:39, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Genericusername57, I wanted to get your direct opinion on this source, which I also mentioned above: [8] It looks like fringe pedo-advocacy to me. Do you agree? 9 articles use it as a source presently: [9] It should probably be removed. Also, I suggest you read the section below titled "Articles", as there is some info there you may find interesting, both about specific articles and about remaining work by Haiduc. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:53, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Crossroads. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.Human10.0 (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks; received and replied. For future reference for whoever is reading - I check my email regularly, so no need to give me this template message. -Crossroads- (talk) 14:35, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Articles

Here are some of the problem articles:

Ganymede (mythology):

Haiduc, the same banned editor that had a big influence on the Pederasty article also had a pretty sizable influence on this article.

This is what a user had to say about it:

“This article still contains remnants of the pederastic agenda associated with a banned editor (who may or may not be responsible for all of it). I've tried to fix some things, but it really is quite a mess. It isn't so much that it's wrong as that the POV stands in the way of a more structured, capacious approach. It's also sorely lacking in sources.”

Since the user left that comment on the talk page, I do believe that it has been cleaned up a little bit but it still has some problems.

LGBT History:

You seem to already know that this article has some problems because you have made some edits to it, but I was hoping that I could add my 2 cents.

This shows that 4 of the top 10 editors to this article (by authorship) are now blocked from editing Wikipedia indefinitely. The blocked editors are Lionhead99 (who has the most edits), Haiduc, Tjmayerinsf, and Ash. That alone should raise some questions, but there is more.

The following sentence is in the beginning of the article: “What survives after many centuries of persecution—resulting in shame, suppression, and secrecy—has only in more recent decades been pursued and interwoven into more mainstream historical narratives.” Not only does the sentence come off as very biased, far too broad, but also untrue. It makes it seem like that every society in history totally favored homosexuality, and it is only in recent times that LGBT people have come under persecution. Anyone with a little bit of digging can find out that persecution of LGBT people has a long history, and this article goes out of its way to make it seem like it has always had widespread acceptance. When you read a specific section of the article that talks about a particular society that supposedly had a whole lot of evidence for homosexuality it makes it seem like to the reader that because it existed in a particular society, it had widespread acceptance. Just because there is evidence for it, does not mean it was universally accepted or practiced.

Additionally, this article unfortunately cherrypicks pieces of evidence, and tries to present them as representative of the whole subject. It also sometimes very conveniently does not mention evidence to the contrary and it makes some very bold statements and it cites to very questionable sources.

Here is a small incident that was documented in the Talk page that you have probably already seen:

Do we have a source / citations for the following?: One ancient saying claimed that "Women are for business, boys are for pleasure."[citation needed] 67.174.217.47 (talk) 01:09, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Note: I've looked all over and the only thing close to reliable I've found is this opinion piece Breawycker (talk to me!) 02:56, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Done: No reliable sources state that the phrase is "ancient"; sources that do mention the phrase are about the Bacha bazi of Afghanistan, not Ancient Greece. Nanophosis (talk) 04:43, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Some users found a rather bold, and broad statement that had been included in this article for a long time without any reliable source. And they did the right thing, they removed it. But I fear that there are many other statements like the one discussed above that are currently included in the article.

Pederasty in Ancient Greece:

3 of the Top 10 editors to this article are now blocked indefinitely. The Number 1 editor is our banned friend Haiduc, who has had a huge impact on this article.

There are 15 “citation needed” templates to this article. That definitely raises some eyebrows. This article includes the same problems that I mentioned for the other articles above.

---

This is what I have for now. But I can continue to send you more articles that have problems as I come across them. It seems like there was a concerted effort by users in the past who are now banned to work on articles with this type of subject matter. Finally, I would hate for people to think that I am targeting pages with a specific type of subject matter, but often times I have come upon pages that are related to pederasty that are biased, and heavily impacted by banned users. Sorry if there are some errors, I posted this in a hurry. TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 17:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi TrynaMakeADollar, thanks for providing this. It's good to engage in analysis like you did. Please do send me more articles you feel have problems as you come across them, and feel free to boldly make fixes yourself too. I'll give some tips on that below.

It's not surprising to me that pages that relate to historical pederasty in some way have these problems. Part of it is that history in general is difficult; sometimes it seems like there are as many narratives and interpretations as there are historians. Even a good faith editor could mistakenly use a source that is just one valid scholarly view among others, or even fail to notice that a certain view is fringe. Of course, POV pushers make the problem much worse, and Haiduc was perhaps the foremost of these.

Check out his user stats: [10] Active for over 5.5 years with over 9,200 mainspace edits. It's no wonder we're still cleaning up his damage today. And even though his obsession was with pederasty, he, much like NAMBLA, tried to siphon off legitimacy from regular homosexuality. He was active on LGBT pages, attached the LGBT portal to his pederasty categories, [11] and regularly called his opponents homophobic. So there may still be some of his damage even on LGBT-related articles. Note too that 46 articles exist that were created by him: [12] Some of these probably are non-notable pederasts and should be deleted; others might still have bad sourcing or slanted language in part.

Note however that to ascertain who is responsible for the present form of an article, the pie chart to focus on is the "Authorship" one lower down. The earlier charts are about who historically has made edits or added text, but the stuff they added could have been removed later. They also only calculate percentages out of the top 10 rather than everybody. As an example, check the stats for "Pederasty": [13] The "top editors" charts will make you think Haiduc wrote most of what is there, but the authorship chart says that I wrote 75.3% of the present version (actually, most of that was copied by me from other articles). Haiduc still wrote 6.2%, but that has been vetted and shouldn't be an issue. In other articles, though, authorship by him should indicate caution, since people may have overlooked any issues. Note too that it is possible that when somebody moves content or reverts a removal, the system thinks the authorship changed - I am not certain how it works.

Regarding the three articles you pointed out:

Ganymede (mythology): This article relies too much on primary sources and I have tagged it so. The user who left that comment was Cynwolfe; so we know she is aware of Haiduc's agenda. Haiduc has 8.9% authorship, but that by no means implies the rest is necessarily good.

LGBT history: Lionhead99 has 10.7% authorship, and the other blocked users apparently have <2% each. Not a lot, but we don't know the carefulness or motivations of the many others who worked on it either. I don't see any issue with the sentence in the lead you mentioned. The article shouldn't focus excessively on persecution, but it also shouldn't make it seem like it was more accepted or even common in certain cultures than it was. I actually haven't read too many talk pages. I am sure there is much room for improvement in this article.

Pederasty in ancient Greece: As I mentioned, Cynwolfe was well aware of Haiduc's agenda, and it appears she made efforts to fix his messes. At this article, she has 49.3% authorship, with 17.1% for Haiduc. She probably reviewed the whole thing though. Still, we don't know her approach, we don't know the quality of the other authors, anyone can make mistakes, and there are remaining issues, some of which you mentioned.

I appreciate you sharing this with me. Don't be afraid to try to fix issues as you see them as well. Worst that can happen is you're reverted; and I'm watching these pages and can weigh in for any change. If the sources are cherrypicked, you can find additional and/or replacement sources on the subject, use those, and modify the supported statements accordingly; or make a comment on Talk. If any statement is not supported by its source, then change it so it is. If a statement is dubious and unsupported, and especially if it has a citation needed tag, you should just remove it. The rules are that the WP:BURDEN of supporting it is on the one bringing it back after removal. I wouldn't go wild with removal however - sometimes you can stick a citation needed on it. -Crossroads- (talk) 05:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC) updated -Crossroads- (talk) 15:06, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

"Vast Majority" vs "Most"

Hey, maybe I missed something but in the Heterosexuality article it is stated that "Across cultures, most people are heterosexual[3]". But I think that the source's wording is stronger than what is presented in the article. The source says that in all cultures the "vast majority" of individuals are heterosexual. Is there a reason for why the words used in the article are different than the one's used in the source?

Also, perhaps a slightly longer sentence about the (for lack of a better word) prevalence of heterosexuality in all cultures could be included in the article's Demographics section? TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 21:36, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Hey TrynaMakeADollar, both of these ideas sound reasonable to me. I suggest implementing them. I originally didn't put "vast majority" so as not to make the statement too strong, in case there was an objection to having it at all. But since others support it now, we may as well try to make it fit the source more. I am not aware of any similar MEDRS sources that contradict it. -Crossroads- (talk) 23:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Alright I'll get on it. TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 04:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Just a note here that this discussion was continued at the article's talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:31, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

Talk:TERF

You may wish the check your pronoun use in this contribution to Talk:TERF, given the subject of the paper under discussion. Lmatt (talk) 01:39, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Changed to gender neutral to be safe. The name is admittedly unclear anyway, I don't know why I assumed male. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:12, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for September 18

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Quantum suicide and immortality, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Continuum (check to confirm | fix with Dab solver). Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

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Fixed. Helpful bot. -Crossroads- (talk) 15:45, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Your edit warring

You have repeatedly been edit warring on the Death of JonBenét Ramsey page. Earlier, you removed my edit for allegedly using a NRS - without actually checking the source. Then on the Talk page, you repeated a false accusation against me made by another editor. Now you have removed an edit I made that was clearly warranted, and your reasoning is highly dubious: A two-source rule? Nowhere on Wikipedia is there a two-source rule. If there is, then the majority of Wikipedia's content is in violation. As it is, the source I provided is widely considered the bible of JonBenèt books, and a NYT bestseller.

I have had strong disagreements with other editors, specifically Acroterion and Flyer22 Reborn. And yet they have given specific explanations as to how I could edit differently to their satisfaction; I have therefore made the appropriate changes. It seems obvious, though, that your reversions of my edits are aimed at me. How often have you reverted someone for using a NRS without checking the source? When have you ever demanded a second source?

The information I added is very relevant; the article could be seen to imply that the ransom demand was definitely related to John Ramsey's Christmas bonus of the previous year, but no such conclusion was reached by investigators.

Please stop targeting me for reversion or for any other hostile act, and please stop edit warring. Otherwise I may need to refer you for sanction.

Thank you. Vcuttolo (talk) 03:23, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Vcuttolo, your threats to get me sanctioned will get you nowhere. WP:Edit warring has a very particular meaning - "repeatedly overrid[ing] each other's contributions...An editor who repeatedly restores their preferred version is edit warring". I reverted you one time. [14] Another dispute over different content is not edit warring, as it is a different matter. The rest of this is also a distortion. I removed Dailymotion as a source; as it turned out, it was a copyright violation, not user-generated, but still a problem. I never said anything about a two-source rule. But just because something is sourced does not mean it merits inclusion. See WP:UNDUE. And I know you are aware of this because you alluded to it in your last edit summary. [15] You should take back your false accusation that I have edit warred. And keep your content disputes on the article talk page. -Crossroads- (talk) 15:07, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Vcuttolo, I've looked at the article history, and your report above is mistaken; there was no edit warring. See your talk page here for details. Cordially Mathglot (talk) 00:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Worth noting that the accuser Vcuttolo is now indefinitely blocked for their behavior on articles such as the one being discussed here. [16] -Crossroads- (talk) 07:20, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

A brownie for you!

Welcome to MFD as another voice of reason. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:20, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Mmm, thanks! -Crossroads- (talk) 17:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

e-mail

Hi Crossroads1, I was notified that you sent me e-mail, but it has not arrived. If it was important, please try again. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 10:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Hi @Pbsouthwood:, it was a RevDel request. There was a page that listed recently active admins and I chose you from there. If you still didn't get the email, please let me know. -Crossroads- (talk) 23:37, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I was just renamed from Crossroads1 to Crossroads, as requested

Leaving this here as a permanent record of my username change. -Crossroads- (talk) 02:13, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Halo Jerk1 might be disappointed that you're leaving the superfluous-numeral-1 club. WanderingWanda (talk) 09:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

Ain't it something, folks, just a glorious day, to see WanderingWanda go from harassing my sister to harassing me. What other reason could you have had for pinging and commenting on me, if not to poke the bear and make an inside joke that Crossroads and I are the same person? So, wait, I'm both my sister and Crossroads? We're all the same person? Crikey!

I have ya figured out, Wanderer. You took your sweet time before making your presence known in a discussion at Kolya Butternut's talk page,[17] where you bash my sister repeatedly. Guess you wanted those admins (Cullen328, JBW, and Johnuniq) to clear out before the subsequent bashing (with unsubstantiated accusations) commenced. Let's say you weren't hounding my sister, like you claim (even though you seem so focused on her that you like to welcome folks who have bashed her[18]). El C still wasn't defending you. You were still harassing her. Three editors (two of them admins) had to warn you. It's in your archives! Your babbling on Kolya Butternut's talk page is the stuff of legend, as is the declaration[19] you intend to use as an excuse to hound and harass my sister some more. But hold up.................. She uses HOUND to harass you and other poor souls, you claim? Man, I wonder why admins never see it that way and always see where she's coming from. It's always the harassers calling her a harasser and then calling her paranoid. Kolya Butternut's behavior matches up with HOUND. No one should be watching the talk page of someone they don't like and following that editor to an article to cite some image guideline that they've been in dispute with the other editor about. Come on now. It's amazing that Crossroads puts up with you following him and watching his talk page. Just between the two of us, you are kinda using Crossroads to keep up with my sister, ain't ya?

Anyhoo, I know she wouldn't have wanted me to take the bait and comment here. I knew you'd poked me, but coming back onto the Wiki and seeing that notification and being annoyed to lay my beautiful eyes on your username? Well, I couldn't resist saying hello. Halo Jerk1 (talk) 10:38, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Listen here, ya silly person. This is WanderingWanda's brother, ManderingManda. I ain't gonna put up with ya harassing WanderingWanda like this. Anyhoo, you should mind your business. – ManderingManda (WanderingWanda (talk) 18:58, 7 October 2019 (UTC))

This is clearly a personal attack in the form of Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence, stating your continued unfounded belief in sockpuppetry by another editor. I suggest you read ArbCom's statements in WP:ASPERSIONS. I won't allow that on my talk page. -Crossroads- (talk) 21:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks ya. The above is Wanderer's MO. CUs and admins who say different on it don't matter to that one. I could be standing side by side with dear sister in real life, and this one here would still swear we're the same person. I gather, in certain folks' heads, my sister waited this long to reply to WanderingWanda and decided to reply as me. I'm flattered that WanderingWanda admires my southern twang enough to copy it. It's a little something I picked up from one of the forums I frequent, like the mocking emoji I picked up from WanderingWanda. Too bad WanderingWanda thinks it's something to mask my "true self." I do say "sister" a lot on the Wiki, but I won't be calling her "Flyer." I don't know her as "Flyer" and it sounds foreign to me whenever I attempt to call her by that handle. WanderingWanda's recent aspersion is going in my evidence jar. In the interim, WanderingWanda can go back to Wikipediocracy and cry some more. 😊 Halo Jerk1 (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2019 (UTC)