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Sorry about that, I'm not entirely sure how it works. I'll upload the previous image if that will solve the problem. - Jak Fisher (talk)

Hello,

Please note that TOTP based two-factor authentication is now available for all administrators. In light of the recent compromised accounts, you are encouraged to add this additional layer of security to your account. It may be enabled on your preferences page in the "User profile" tab under the "Basic information" section. For basic instructions on how to enable two-factor authentication, please see the developing help page for additional information. Important: Be sure to record the two-factor authentication key and the single use keys. If you lose your two factor authentication and do not have the keys, it's possible that your account will not be recoverable. Furthermore, you are encouraged to utilize a unique password and two-factor authentication for the email account associated with your Wikimedia account. This measure will assist in safeguarding your account from malicious password resets. Comments, questions, and concerns may be directed to the thread on the administrators' noticeboard. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi CIreland.

A new user group, New Page Reviewer, has been created in a move to greatly improve the standard of new page patrolling. The user right can be granted by any admin at PERM. It is highly recommended that admins look beyond the simple numerical threshold and satisfy themselves that the candidates have the required skills of communication and an advanced knowledge of notability and deletion. Admins are automatically included in this user right.

It is anticipated that this user right will significantly reduce the work load of admins who patrol the performance of the patrollers. However,due to the complexity of the rollout, some rights may have been accorded that may later need to be withdrawn, so some help will still be needed to some extent when discovering wrongly applied deletion tags or inappropriate pages that escape the attention of less experienced reviewers, and above all, hasty and bitey tagging for maintenance. User warnings are available here but very often a friendly custom message works best.

If you have any questions about this user right, don't hesitate to join us at WT:NPR. (Sent to all admins).MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:47, 15 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, CIreland. Voting in the 2016 Arbitration Committee elections is open from Monday, 00:00, 21 November through Sunday, 23:59, 4 December to all unblocked users who have registered an account before Wednesday, 00:00, 28 October 2016 and have made at least 150 mainspace edits before Sunday, 00:00, 1 November 2016.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2016 election, please review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:08, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello CIreland. I need help understanding what is happening. Your notification said to feel free to contact you. I am a longtime Wikipedian in good standing. GamerGate is something that happened without me being aware of it. I am not a gamer. However, I recently became aware of it (people making references to it). I looked it up on Wikipedia, as we all do. This led me to the Brianna Wu page. I read it but when I feel something is a 'stretch', I check the sources. I found that none of the cited sources said that Wu was a software engineer. Before editing, I even consulted Wu's personal website, which made no such claim. So I removed that part as unsourced (I believe that remains policy). In less than one hour, Brianna Wu herself, was tweeting about my edit. Multiple editors came to revert my edit or debate me. I tried to answer as best I could, but Brianna Wu had called me a GamerGater in her tweet. I'd answer on person on their talk page and another would answer. And now, finally, I have your notification, which quite frankly sounds ominous. It feels accusatory and I don't know what I did wrong. As of this moment, my edit still stands. (others have started some "edit-warring" by the looks of it) Please advise ... --SVTCobra (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some points:

• Getting a discretionary sanctions notification does not imply wrongdoing. Most people editing in a contentious area get one. That includes me.
• The above being said, I did find one of your edits objectionable. Not the "software engineer" edit but rather this edit. It's an old gamergate canard that Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn et al. (all women, of course) are not really developers/software engineers/programmers/game designers/whatever but are professional victims, milking their faux victimhood for financial gain. That's Grade A bullshit, of course, unsupported by any reliable source and repeated only in the fetid sewers of the internet. So, when you swapped "Game developer" for "Public speaker" (entirely misrepresenting the suggested source in your edit summary) I was put in mind of the previous nonsense and recalled the faint whiff of virtual excrement.
• Whether the occupation field says "software engineer" or "developer" or whatever, I really don't think is very important. They're all more or less synonymous in everyday parlance. But it's never going to only say "Public speaker", because that would be false and malign.
• I realise that gamergate is a minefield to the uninitiated and it's easy get labelled. So Ms Wu called you a gamergater, so what? Maybe it was just because she looked in your contribs and saw this corker from September. I know I did. It certainly made you appear a lot more familiar with gamergate than you say you are now.
• And just to avoid any confusion: I may be an admin here, but on the topic of gamergate, I'm just a regular editor. And a frothing-at-the-mouth SJW to boot.

CIreland (talk) 00:48, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your prompt response. I am comforted by the fact that you looked into my history including the Anita talk page. I never said I woke up today and became interested in GamerGate. "Recent" to me is at least months. The years pass rapidly at my age. The Wu as a public speaker actually comes from her own website where she talks about it becoming a bigger part. And then there are agency sites that have Wu on the roster. Furthermore, her site is full of videos documenting various speaking engagements. I know that it was a bad edit on my part. I guess I felt is was a semi-sourced edit for an unsourced edit. I still don't feel like I understand GamerGate.

PS. I don't think you should call yourself a "frothing-at-the-mouth SJW". At least no publically.--SVTCobra (talk) 01:31, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why I feel the need, but I want to amend what I said. I did not come to the Sarkeesian article through an interest in GamerGate. In hindsight, I think it was Sarkeesian's UN testimony that led me to her page, and she was one of several things that mentioned GamerGate which I later began reading about.

Also, you said "so what" about me being called a GamerGater and I think you know that it exactly paints me as 4chan monster coming from the sewers of the internet (a turn of phrase you've used twice with me). I think it is probably near the same as being called a Nazi for some people. If you have the time, I would love to hear what you consider to be the sewers and what is not the sewers. Cheers. --SVTCobra (talk) 23:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion you are giving far too much weight to an ephemeral remark made on the most ephemeral of platforms that will be forgotten in moments. Like it or not, you have made remarks and edits that are likely to be considered consistent with the label. Unless you are wanting to disavow those remarks, the label itself is largely irrelevant.

You know what I found most jarring and unexpected in what you said above? It was when you said I should not publicly label myself a "frothing-at-the-mouth SJW". It illustrates the difference in perspective. It is just a label. Appropriated, in this case, to gently mock with "frothy" hyperbole those who would use it. Yet inconsequential even if some would find it accurate. "Gamergater", "SJW" - these expressions are barely, if at all, even used in any place that actually matters.

"Sewers of the internet" is a throwaway metaphor that doubtless does not bear rigorous application. I just mean those virtual places where discredited ideas are cast out to because they have been rejected in the larger world. The echo-chambers of Reddit; the YouTube videos of conspiracy theorists; the unread and abandoned blogs peddling pathological science; etc. etc. Basically I mean places on the internet Wikipedia would consider an inherently and unquestionably unreliable source.

CIreland (talk) 00:36, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You can call Twitter ephemeral if you like, but it took nothing more than a random tweet to make an international news story about CNN broadcasting porn for 30 minutes. All of it false, of course.

I, personally, reject labels. You are free to embrace them, even if they were conceived as pejoratives. In my opinion, they cloud the minds of those who would review our edits.

I do not disavow or retract my assertion that there is legitimate criticism of Sarkeesian. (And I spoke not about her Tropes work.) I saw her UN testimony and thought it was an incredible attack on free speech. When I saw her Wikipedia page, I was shocked that there was not a mention of this. I was short on time and did the lazy thing: begging on the talk page for improvements. In response to my detractors, I think I put some lame links which I'd gathered with Google for anything that looked like a reliable source. It was lazy and half-assed. I am not surprised nothing came of it.

But this brings us back to to "the sewers". You call it "discredited ideas" from unreliable sources. You mention YouTube as such a source. Does Sarkeesian herself come from the bowels of these sewers? Are many of her claims not discredited? I find a major imbalance here.

My last remark will be a throwback to something you said about Wu and Sarkeesian being professional victims. I don't think they are, but they are certainly profiting from it and using the victim status to garner more attention.

I welcome your thoughts. --SVTCobra (talk) 04:11, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To answer you question about YouTube: I singled out "the YouTube videos of conspiracy theorists" as an example - which Feminist Frequency clearly is not an example of. However, it's also the case that the FF YouTube videos are not a reliable source (except as source for their own content in their own article) for Wikipedia; they have little (if any) traditional editorial oversight or peer review. They are also pretty basic; feminism and feminist cultural criticism has a wealth of proper academic material we can draw on.

You ask, "Are many of her claims not discredited?". The answer is simply, "No". And our articles reflect that. That doesn't mean that every video is a flawless masterpiece, of course, but they are very widely praised by people who are employed to review and critique this sort of thing. That's hardly surprising either, this kind of feminist analysis is taught in the earliest stages of just about any university arts or social science degree. I was taught it thirty years ago and have been re-taught it a number of times since. Doubtless most professional reviewers and critics had a similar experience.

CIreland (talk) 23:57, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, the ideas of an unseen all-encompassing patriarchy and Western rape culture are not examples of conspiracy theories? I must say, I am really beginning to worry about how "feminist analysis" is being taught at universities. I am sliding towards becoming anti-feminist. However, I am not going to go into an "echo-chamber". Do you have any reading or videos that you'd recommend that might logically dissuade me of my anti-feminist leanings? Cheers, --SVTCobra (talk) 20:07, 2 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, they are not conspiracy theories. The notion that 9/11 was an inside job by shady figures in the US government is an example of a conspiracy theory. Concepts like "Rape culture" and "Patriarchy" are broad attempts to document societal attitudes and circumstances (both present and historical) by examination of things like power relationships, use of language, representations in media etc.

As for reading, a good start would be our article on Second-wave feminism. If you want to go in depth, seminal books would include The Second Sex, The Feminine Mystique, Sexual Politics and The Female Eunuch. All of which have generated a mountain of academic discussion in their own right. If you want an example of something in a similar vein to the "Tropes vs.." series but from traditional arts criticism, reading analyses of Dickens' representation of women should yield good examples. It also illustrates the point that the FF videos are very rudimentary (often over simplified) in comparison and have a very different intended audience.

You seem to be misunderstanding how critical theory is taught in universities. Think of it more like learning a history of ideas that extends to the present day. So for example, in the example of feminism and literature it's more a case of "These are underlying ideas, these are the most influential thinkers, here are some examples of its application, now go write a simple feminist analysis of X, Y and Z". And then the same is done for a whole host of other interpretative approaches e.g. Marxist, Psychoanalytic, Structuralist (multiple sub-sections to that), New Historicism, New Criticism, the list goes on. My background is in literature (not to mention no longer wholly up to date), so forgive me if I have restricted examples to that area. Here is an example from Yale's YouTube channel of background lectures but remember a full course would also include seminars/tutorials, reading lists etc. CIreland (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again. I have dedicated some time to your suggestions. I grew up in Scandinavia in the 1970s and 80s. So the goals of Second-wave Feminism are not new to me. If fact it was pretty much the norm, even though we were quite rural. Children's clothes were gender neutral. My sister wore my hand-me downs (I am male if it wasn't clear). My mother was the sole provider. I'll leave that as a preamble, but we can return to my personal experience if and when needed. I did not watch all of Professor Fry's lectures on YouTube. But I did watch #20 "Classical Feminism" and #23 "Queer Theory and Gender Perfomativity". Dr. Fry is certainly eloquent (and I wish some of my professors could have spoken so well without consulting notes), but he is still analyzing 19th and early 20th century authors to find his points. Men writing from a woman's point of view and women writing from a man's point of view, but it is all still fiction. He makes enormous logical leaps to say that Virginia Wolf's writing predicted French Feminism over a 100 years later. I am of course disadvantaged by not having the articles that the students were to have read before the lecture, but I think I get his points. In the second lecture, he analyzes the works of Judith Butler in relation to Michel Foucault (both are philosophers). At this point he is analyzing the nature of sexuality ("whatever it is" as Fry likes to say). From here Dr. Fry is way out of his realm. He is talking about gay people in current society and the tyrannical domain and stuff like that. He continues to talk about what what sexuality is and how we sometimes perform to conform to societal norms. Fry continues to pick and choose from these authors and then say "it is so" and sometimes he chooses to meld what they say and say this is how society is. Dr. Fry is in the English department and is supposed teach literature. He is not a philosopher, he is not a behaviorist, he is not a historian, he is not a psychologist, he's not a sociologist. Why on earth is he using his lectures to spout his views on such matters and not teaching English literature? Seriously, at the end of 23 he goes off the deep end and just talks about himself. He says that you can't have heterosexuality without homosexuality. He then says without those two you can't have drag (cross-dressing). He says that he is performing for the students. Performing as a white person. Performing as a male. And he is uncomfortable in all those roles. Dr. Fry is intelligent, obviously, and he has things to say that should be heard. But he should not be teaching Eng-Lit. I encourage you to at least watch the video from this point https://youtube.com/7bkFlJfxyF0?t=39m42s I have much more to say about Feminism, but I had no idea that Dr. Fry would take so much of my time. When you sent me to second wave feminism, I thought Dr. Fry would be another soft-ball that I wouldn't object to. Cheers, --SVTCobra (talk) 04:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the lack of reply, I haven't forgotten this but Christmas is our busiest time at work. CIreland (talk) 22:54, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I certainly had my expectations backwards. I thought Fry would be the unobjectionable "soft-ball" and second-wave feminism, as the very source of ideas like "rape culture", "patriarchy" etc., would draw the almost all the criticism. I actually tried to find some alternate critical theory lectures because I thought Fry was pretty conservative but I could only find Yale's channel that had a full set.

You are kind of right that, in this course, Fry is not teaching English Lit. But I can guarantee that every undergraduate English Lit program will have one of these courses. That's because this is sort of meta-English Literature. Most English Lit courses will concern particular writers, movements or historical periods. So, for example, one might take a course on Shakespeare in which you, of course, read Shakespeare but also read and write criticism of Shakespeare. And some of that criticism you read will be from a particular "school" of criticism (Marxist, Feminist, Post-structuralist etc. etc.) Fry's lecture course is a history of literary criticism. So that doesn't mean that Fry himself writes about literature and Gender Theory (if you Google scholar his publications he clearly doesn't) rather, he is illustrating the Gender Theory perspective on literature. So, he may not have studied in depth sociology, psychology etc., but that doesn't mean he can't give an undergraduate overview of what Gender Theory concerns and how it has been applied to literature. However, somebody who writes professionally about literature from that perspective would have done that interdisciplinary research. All that being said, the degree to which particular approaches to literary criticism borrow from other disciplines varies widely; more formalist approaches (example: New Criticism) are much more self-contained.

Finally, topic areas are not so neatly divided as your remark: He is not a philosopher, he is not a behaviorist, he is not a historian, he is not a psychologist, he's not a sociologist. suggests. Historians are not sociologists but write about the structure of Roman society. Economists are not psychologists but talk about Value. Physicists are not mathematicians but utilise differential calculus.

CIreland (talk) 01:46, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First, I want to thank you for talking the time to have this discussion with me. I have no expectation that you reply quickly, but only at your own leisure, if at all.

Fry: He isn't teaching English Lit in this course? The video series description would have me believe otherwise: "This is a survey of the main trends in twentieth-century literary theory. Lectures will provide background for the readings and explicate them where appropriate, while attempting to develop a coherent overall context that incorporates philosophical and social perspectives on the recurrent questions: what is literature, how is it produced, how can it be understood, and what is its purpose?" But whatever it is, should we, as a society, build our perception of the world on literary criticism? Especially when it is not taking the authors words literally? "I think Jane Austen mean't X when she wrote Y so therefore our current world is Z". It just seems perverse to have this as the underpinning of a worldview as important as Feminism.

Second Wave Feminism: You mention gender theory and I included the link because it redirects to gender studies. Just reading the part before the table of content is mind-bending. There is an overwhelming emphasis on art and culture and an outright dismissal of reality ("For instance in anthropology, sociology and psychology, gender is often studied as a practice, whereas in cultural studies representations of gender are more often examined [in gender studies]"). Sure, let's look at books and movies and not at actual humans.

But why do you keep bringing up 2nd wave? I do not have a problem with it. And I think you know that 2nd wave is not today's Feminism. The focus on intersectionality has removed it so far from women's rights.

University topics/areas of study: A historian does not need to be a sociologist to describe the structure of a society. The key word is structure. The historian does not (or ought not) make conclusions about social interactions that are not evident in archeological findings. Have you seen how Economists use the term Value? They avoid psychology like it was the plague, and when they are stumped, they ask actual psychologists for help in explaining why their simple models don't work. I will ignore your physics/mathematics comparison as math is just a tool.

I hope we can turn the conversation towards modern Feminism, should you choose to continue the debate. If I were a 2nd wave feminist, I'd be upset that my movement was hijacked and debased. Cheers, SVTCobra (talk) 01:12, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]