Talk:Lindy West

May 2012

This article should be deleted. It is completely irrelevant and unnecessary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.113.37 (talk) 16:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I can't say I disagree. Fails the notability requirement. 71.222.99.69 (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:AFD is thataway. Robofish (talk) 23:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposing deletion

You should review the basic criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (people), and if you think the subject fails the criteria, then submit to WP:AfD. Basic preliminary stuff is at WP:BEFORE. Actual submission steps are at WP:AFDHOWTO. This is made much easier if you enable Twinkle at your Preferences -> Gadgets.

I don't think Lindy West is likely to be deleted; I'll add a number of articles about her (other than at The Stranger and Jezebel) which I think would meet the criteria, but you can always try if you wish. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:47, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I removed the PROD template from talk page space, it needs to go in article space. Safiel (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Also, it appears the article was prodded shortly after it was created a few years ago, so it needs to go through Articles for Deletion. Safiel (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Help - script error

I apparently made a "script error" but don't know what that is. 24.97.201.230 (talk) 17:03, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The article no longer says "script error" so I think I may have fixed it. 24.97.201.230 (talk) 17:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find any indication of such an error message in previous versions of the article; it might have been some sort of temporary glitch. Anyway, it seems resolved. Huon (talk) 17:14, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thank you. 24.97.201.230 (talk) 21:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Fat shaming background

Information about Lindy West's BMI has been added to the page. This was done in order to suggest some of the reasons she takes a particular interest in the subject of fat shaming. Personal information about Ms. West (namely height and weight) was publicly disclosed on the internet by Ms. West herself, and taken from her own personal website. Accordingly, there should be no concerns about invasion of privacy. The other references are to reputable medical institutions (e.g., the NIH; the University of Rochester). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.189.73.197 (talk) 10:33, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

See WP:SYNTH and WP:BLP. Wikipedia is not a platform for you to make up your own arguments about what people ought to think, and making your own medical diagnosis based on what you think you read on a blog about a person is far beyond the scope of what is acceptable in a Wikipedia biography. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:17, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

You removed today's edit claiming that reliable sources were not cited. However, the primary cited source for the added information was Lindy West's own public website, which per Wikipedia policy is a valid source for bio page purposes. From the guidelines you linked to: "Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets – as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below)." The information provided is not something "I thought I read on a blog", as you put it. Also, it is unclear how the edits constitute instruction regarding "what people ought to think."

Accordingly, I have restored the added material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.189.73.197 (talk • contribs) 15:55, 22 October 2014‎

In the post you cited, West actually says she is healthy. You, some Anonymous Guy on the Internet, come along and argue with that, saying "No, actually, here is my medical diagnosis...". Do not make a medical diagnosis on Wikipedia. Please stop. You may be blocked form editing if you continue. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:01, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not my definition of obesity; it's the NIH's. And it's based on facts (height/weight) provided by West herself. But in order to avoid the whole issue of making a "medical diagnosis" on Wikipedia, I have simply inserted her statistics as she reports them, without further analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.189.73.197 (talk) 17:50, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

The blog post, Hello, I am fat (February 11, 2011) on The Stranger's blog, was a reply to comments by Dan Savage. It is not Lindy West's "Bio Page", which misleadingly implies that West publicizes her height and weight as part of a normal biography. What West actually said was, the "Alp of shame that crushes every fat person every day of their lives—the same shame that makes it a radical act for me to post a picture of my body and tell you how much it weighs." It is not the role of Wikipedia to take that "radical act", in the context of a debate, and use it for other rhetorical purposes. It's obviously tendentious.

No other reputable publication has drawn attention to West's weight in the way you are doing. The rules of WP:BLP don't allow us to construct our own lines of attack against living persons as you are doing here. You are trying to say, "West criticizes fat shaming, but LOOK she is obese!" It would be acceptable if the New York Times or The Economist said that; we could cite their counterarguments or criticisms. It is not true that the NIH has taken issue with Lindy West's opinions about weight and health. You are the one taking issue with it: one anonymous guy identified at IP 62.189.73.197. If the NIH had issued a response to Lindy West, we could cite that.

What you are doing is lifting facts out of context, and using them in a specific way: to influence how the reader thinks about West's writings on fat shaming. Wikipedia editors don't get to do that. Find a reuptable authority who has responded to West in some way, and cite what they said. Besides WP:BLP and WP:SYNTH, see WP:FRANKIE. Wikipedia has numerous guidelines against this kind of editing. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:41, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

With regard to WP:UNDUE, an acceptable way to handle this would be 1) Use the numerous published sources to expand this stub to be a well-rounded biography of Lindy West, 2) Give a complete account of the exchange between Savage and West on fat shaming. That is assuming third parties even covered the West/Savage issue; otherwise it's a tempest in a teapot. Expanding the bio fully is a lot of work, but that is what is required to provide balance and contest. You can't use the excuse that articles are works in progress when the result is an incomplete article that disproportionately shines a light on selected facts.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

List of articles mentioning West

This section of the article had been renamed "references". However, its content are not references: they are not citations for specific material contained in the article, nor are they a list of articles consulted as general references in writing the Wikipedia article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

In the MOS, in WP:FNNR, there are four things:

1. explanatory footnotes that give information which is too detailed or awkward to be in the body of the article,
2. citation footnotes (either short citations or full citations) that connect specific material in the article with specific sources,
3. full citations to sources, if short citations are used in the footnotes, or
4. general references (full bibliographic citations to sources that were consulted in writing the article but that are not explicitly connected to any specific material in the article).

In the Notes section are #2, citation footnotes. Following that is References, which is #4, aka general references. You are correct that they are not explicitly connected to material in the article. But so what? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The content of "List of articles mentioning West" fit none of those four options listed in WP:FNNR. If they are not connected to any material in the article then they are not references! Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

There are Featured Articles like Ina Garten and Monkey Gone to Heaven that use Notes and Reference sections this way. The section name "Articles that mention Lindy West" is clearly not a standard name, and it sounds silly.

And these are connected with the article, for example on the question of whether west was ever a film editor. There was no inline citation for that, but there was a reference. Obviously an inline citation is better, but the next best thing is for the cited facts to be in the references in the bottom. One of several purposes behind citing sources this way is as a stage in the development of better articles. Another purpose is to list sources that establish the notability of a stub. Having a list of credible references often -- not always! -- avoids wasting time in a moot AFD discussion. yes, it would be better to have them all cited inline, but a stub has to start somewhere. And even FAs use the same structure, sometimes. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:55, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

You are not reading, or listening. Most articles don't have separate notes or references sections. However, when they do, Notes are for specific citations for specific claims, references are a list of specific works consulted for the content of the article. Your list of articles that mention Lindy West are neither, they are just a list of articles that mention Lindy West. Maybe there are some in that list that could be used as sources - however, none currently are, and most could never be. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 01:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

They lend support to generalizations about West, such as "West has written on racism and sexism" etc. And they provide general background on the subject. I guess you could argue that References could be renamed "Further reading", since the serve practically the same purpose in this case. But "Articles mentioning West"? We don't have any articles -- certainly not any decent ones -- that use a section name like that. But we do have many articles with lists of sources at the bottom that have not (yet) been incorporated into the main article. They serve a good purpose, especially with stubs. A stub leaves the reader wanting, by definition. A list of refs at least gives them somewhere to go. Hence the common use of the technique. I've even given examples of Featured Articles that use this method.

"Articles mentioning West" sounds rather snarky. Is that the point? To chip away at notability to make it seem like this article is manufactured drama? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I have gone beyond the point of trying to reason with you. You are the drama manufacturer: you have been editing this article for months, so you KNOW that the wording "Articles that mention Lindy West" has been there at least since April [1] and was not put there by me. And I see from edit summaries that there have been past attempts to teach you what "notes" and "sources" in Wikipedia articles actually are. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 03:12, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it said that, but it wasn't the section title. It's not the right section title. And it's the wrong section order. It's pretty basic, simple MOS stuff. Note, References, Further Reading, External links is the standard order. It's odd to become obsessed with upsetting that standard order and try to minimize the value of the list of sources by making that the section title. To try to ague the false case that there are no high quality sources that have substantive, non-trivial coverage of West. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:31, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Quote Deletion

I had deleted this quoute "Accepting the award, West said, "I hear a lot these days about the lazy, aimless 'millennials' – about how all we want to do is sit around twerking our iPods and Tweedling our Kardashians – and I also hear people asking, 'Where is the next generation of the social justice movement? Where are all the young feminists and womanists and activists?' Dude, they're on the internet."" I had wrote in the edit summary that it was a notability issue, Dennis Bratland had corrected me on that. However, WP:WEIGHT I would suggest argues against inclusion and it seems a bit soapboxy, considering that the sources that pointed to it were the press release of the award ceremony and a mobile phone recording of the speech at the award ceremony posted to youtube... -Xcuref1endx (talk) 21:29, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The point of a quote is to show readers what a person thinks, what their attitudes are. If this were a quote from someone who is not Lindy West, it might make sense to say it's undue weight. But Lindy West is the subject. It's kind of hard to say there's too much stuff about Lindy West in an article about Lindy West. Considering what a short article this is, the idea that all relevant points of view have to be perfectly balanced is silly. If you want a balanced article, expand it threefold, then debate the finer points of due weight. If somebody deletes every addition this way, no article can ever be written collaboratively. Perfection is not required.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:32, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

The length of the article is irrelevant, considering what should be included are things that can be reliably sourced and given proper WP:WEIGHT, otherwise its inclusion is based upon original research and the subjective point of view of those who think it warrants inclusion. And I am not saying that relevant points have to be 'perfectly balanced.' Its inclusion is both WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 23:22, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

If you still feel it should be included, then it is time to bring in a third opinion. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 23:24, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

External links modified

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Incorrect use of policy links as magic talismans

This edit summary cites WP:TRIVIA and WP:PROMOTION for deleting mention of the Women's Media Center Social Media Award. If you actually read WP:TRIVIA, it says, right at the top, in a section helpfuly titled "What this is not" that "This guideline does not suggest the inclusion or exclusion of any information; it only gives style recommendations. Issues of inclusion are addressed by content policies." WP:PROMOTION says nothing about deleting mention of awards to anybody. It is not self promotion. It's not advertising. Neither of these arguments makes any sense.

Going back a little earlier, we have the same deletion, with the summary "rmving references to womens media center award, it is primarily sourced, if someone can find a reliable secondary source for it, put it back in" WP:PRIMARY offers no support for this. Primary sources are allowed, and they may be use to support facts. In fact, the most desirable source for who won an award is the organization giving it. Who is the source for the Acadamey Awards for in the Featured Articles Gary Cooper, or Bradley Cooper? The Academy Awards, of course. The FA Zodiac (film) cites -- who else -- the British Film Institute to verify that Zodiac won a British Film Institute award. Just bizarre reasoning.

This is wrong "removed per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. Link is already included up top". Says we don't include multiple different official websites, such as both davidbowie.com and https://twitter.com/davidbowiereal and all other sites and urls that belong to that person. But we do but davidbowie.com in both the infobox and the external links section, per WP:ELCITE. This is how the Featured Article David Bowie does it, as to dozens of other Featured Articles. Content in indoboxes is almost alwawas duplicated by content in sections. Another bizarre misreading of plain English guidelines.

This one is wrong too. " there is already notes for the work cited". These further readings sources are not cited in the reflist. See MOS:FURTHER.

I could go on, but I'm getting annoyed. These blatantly false excuses for deleting content are not a good choice, and I suggest cutting it out. Tossing around an alphabet soup of WP:XYZABC all caps policy links is not a magic talisman to justify anything you like. You have to at least read WP:XYZABC before you invoke it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

You can easily find other resources that show that gary cooper has won an academy award, hence, there are other reliable secondary sources. There is virtually NOTHING out there that mentions anything about the womens media center social media award, other than that single press release for that award. Whether you are annoyed or not is irrelevant, and if you want to bring in outside voices, that is fine. The award is has no reference anywhere, and its inclusion is either trivia or reads like Lindy West's resume. -Xcuref1endx (talk) 00:19, 3 August 2017 (UTC)