I've read the strings and visited Ms. Sarkeesian's Wikipedia and self-published website, Feminist Frequency, as well as Kickstarter, and Forbes write up about the Wikipedia Sarkeesian article debacle ("W-SAD").
As a disclaimer, I have done none of these things. Therefore, I have absolutely no opinion on Ms. Sarkeesian or her article. I have, however, read Thomas' email, and agree with him.
I weigh in on Ms. Sarkeesian's behalf about notability. Let's give her a chance to advance the eternal cause of feminine value and voice. She has extraordinary, and even visionary ideas, and deserves our temperance and admiration. She is not just a blogger. She is not someone who will become less meaningful and whose sole impact on society will be only the W-SAD. She is one of ours, a gem who comes out swinging.
Karen, let me refer to one of Wikipedia's policies, what Wikipedia is not:
Wikipedia is not a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing. This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages.
Personally, I would greatly hesitate to call an article about a feminist blogger "propaganda", however, it may or may not fall under "soapbox", "advertising" and "showcasing", depending on the individual article.
Note that depending on the wording, an article could be essentially propaganda, advertising, or showcasing, but it may not always reflect on notability.
Just because I want to be incredibly clear about what notability is, here is what the nutshell at Wikipedia:Notability (people) says:
And here is the nutshell at Notability (web):
Wikipedia should avoid articles about web sites that could be interpreted as advertising. For material published on the web to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should be notableand of historical significance. Wikipedia articles about web content should use citations from reliable sources.
If a page about her went up prematurely, let us watch it evolve, and take heart, celebrating her crowdsourcing success and ability to challenge stereotypes of the type W-SAD manifests.
This is where I will show my deletionist tendencies.
If an article qualifies to be deleted today, it needs to be nominated for deletion today, and then deleted if there is no improvement. if it doesn't need to be deleted, I have faith that it will, most likely (and hopefully!), be rescued from deletion, or even rewritten from scratch, if/when it's nominated for deletion. On the other hand, I can see where this might be less true for articles with female subjects, and I'll get into this later.
I'm guessestimating you are willing to go up to bat for Ms. Sarkeesians' article, and that there are at least one or two people on the list who may feel the same (even if they don't participate in any discussion about this).
I know that there might be a double standard, where female subjects are less likely to have articles than male subjects, particularly in male-dominated fields. The only concern I have, and I'm not certain of this, is that this might apply to deletion of articles with female subjects, where they are more likely to be deleted. Karen, is this what you are concerned about?
From,
Emily
Dear Wikipedia gender topic colleagues,
I've read the strings and visited Ms. Sarkeesian's Wikipedia and self-published website, Feminist Frequency, as well as Kickstarter, and Forbes write up about the Wikipedia Sarkeesian article debacle ("W-SAD").
I weigh in on Ms. Sarkeesian's behalf about notability. Let's give her a chance to advance the eternal cause of feminine value and voice. She has extraordinary, and even visionary ideas, and deserves our temperance and admiration. She is not just a blogger. She is not someone who will become less meaningful and whose sole impact on society will be only the W-SAD. She is one of ours, a gem who comes out swinging.
If a page about her went up prematurely, let us watch it evolve, and take heart, celebrating her crowdsourcing success and ability to challenge stereotypes of the type W-SAD manifests. This does not mean I am suggesting she will be world famous in 100 years. The Feminist cause and its merits find far too few role models. Girl gamers and gender specialists are going to appreciate having this article and its referencing and links to turn to. The story is cautionary, and ever-so current. If we have something to be skeptical about, time will clarify why.
Please, let us give Ms. Sarkeesian's work encouragement to flourish, and see what this dynamic woman does for the gender gap in space and time. I'm of the conviction there is profound social importance in this provocative artist's ideas.
KSRolph
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