Talk:Karen (slang)

Redlink removal

Hey, Areaseven, I'd like to restore those links. I think these women might be notable, and I'd like to communicate that to other editors. —valereee (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Then go ahead and create their articles. Nothing's more inconvenient than leading readers to a dead end. BTW, there was a Meredith Clark article that was deleted in 2015 for CSD:A7. - Areaseven (talk) 02:12, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

@Areaseven, Meredith Clark is a fortyish academic. The fact she wasn't notable 6 years ago doesn't mean she might not be now, and there is nothing wrong with redlinks. Redlinks are helpful to the encyclopedia. This is established consensus. —valereee (talk) 11:35, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Here's what I mean: Meredith Clark at google scholar shows that in 2015 Clark was cited six times. In 2020, 192 times. So far this year, 50 times. —valereee (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

What makes redlinks helpful to the encyclopedia? - Areaseven (talk) 02:33, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:REDLINK - "Good red links help Wikipedia—they encourage new contributors in useful directions, and remind us that Wikipedia is far from finished." Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

As @Firefangledfeathers notes, this is established policy. Areaseven, I'm surprised that someone with tens of thousands of edits and almost fifteen years of experience isn't aware of the value of redlinks. If you've been removing redlinks because you think they're unhelpful, please don't do that any more. People add redlinks because they think a subject might be notable enough for an article, don't currently themselves have the time, expertise, or interest to develop that article, and want to signal other editors that this might be a subject worth writing about. Redlinks tell other editors, in effect, "Hey, if you know anything about this subject, it looks to me like it might be worth developing an article about." Redlinks are part of the collaborative process. Viewing red links as helpful to the encyclopedia is long-established consensus. We only remove red links because we think a subject is almost certainly not notable. Meredith Clark may not be notable yet; I am not an expert in WP:SCHOLAR. But I think it's quite plausible that she is, which is why I redlinked her. Same for the other scholars/journalists I red linked.

(A7, I've not pinged you because when someone I'm in a discussion with repeatedly doesn't ping me, I assume it means they prefer not to be pinged. For the record, I actually do prefer to be pinged.) —valereee (talk) 14:02, 24 April 2021 (UTC)

Red links can clutter an article, but it is easier to cross-link articles if the link already exists, rather trying to add them back later. I make case-by-case assessments using my best judgement: if the article linked may be created in the ambiguously near future, then I will leave it alone. However, if it seems unlikely that such an article would be created in the ambiguously near future, then I remove the red link. If an article that is red linked is being written, it may be in the early stages, and the author may be working on other projects, so I leave "near future" as an undefined time interval.
— Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 08:58, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@DeNoel, I think that's a reasonable rule of thumb. I don't think many articles need more than a couple redlinks, but occasionally I'll come across a subject -- and this is one of them -- where I suspect the experts being quoted are notable but due to WP's unintentional biases, articles about them haven't yet been created. I used three redlinks. A7 removed all three. I reinstated two; one of those has since become an article. I believe the other two are likely notable enough (or possibly will be soon), and there's actually a third quoted expert who might also be notable. I didn't redlink him because I felt like 4 was a lot of redlinks. —valereee (talk) 17:48, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

racist slur question

@Neonpixii, I added a couple of sources that discuss the question and tweaked the assertion. The point the assertion was intended to make I think wasn't that it's racist -- the point is that there's discussion of whether it's racist. —valereee (talk) 21:29, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 June 2021

You should change the name from "Karen (pejorative)" to "Karen (derogatory)," because it's really funny. 73.176.245.64 (talk) 04:27, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: page move requests should be made at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Living Concrete (talk) 04:34, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Should we remove lead image of Kate Gosselin?

I've been becoming more and more uncomfortable with using the image of Kate Gosselin as the lead image here. She is a living person, and while I know she's one of the most extremely public persons, she is still a living human being. Should we find another image for the lead? (I don't offhand have a better suggestion, as admittedly that image of her is pretty spot-on.) —valereee (talk) 16:41, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I would support removing the image. The sources used here and at Kate Gosselin associate her with Karens because of the hair cut. Reliable sources talking about Karens in general are more focused on behavior. Gosselin's photo is illustrating only a minor aspect of this subject. I also don't have any great suggestions for replacement. Possibilities include no image (an improvement to me), an illustration, and possibly a non-free image of a famous Karen example—though I'm not confident such a use would be justified and it would still have the "living person" problem. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:39, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree using a photo of one of the other karens, even if it were a free photo, probably isn't the way to go. Like basically we'd be making the 2021 equivalent of the old joke come true, "Look up the word asshole in the dictionary and there's a picture of him." I'm going to remove the Gosselin image for now while we discuss. —valereee (talk) 11:20, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

no consensus against

@TWM03, the manual of style says Ethno-racial "color labels" may be given capitalized (Black and White) or lower-case (black and white); there is no consensus against what is sometimes perceived as inconsistency in the same article (Black but white). Please let's discuss. —valereee (talk) 11:04, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I have just looked at this and I think I may have misread it before. However, the statement you are referring to was recently modified to say the opposite to what it previously said by a user who didn't change the source: the linked source refers to a proposal to capitalise "Black" but not "white" that was voted down. I don't really see any logical reason to have this inconsistency, I am aware that some newspapers use "Black" and "white" but the decisions seemed to be controversial and sometimes based on a notion that white people are in some way more diverse as a group than black people, which I don't think is true, and even if it was I don't see why this would be a justification to capitalise one and not the other ("Scottish" and "European" are both capitalised in English despite one group being clearly more diverse than the other). Most ethnic labels are based on geography or languages and are therefore capitalised because of their status as proper nouns (Asian, Hispanic, European, etc.). However, this does not apply to the labels "black" and "white", so in my opinion there is no need to capitalise them except in the contexts given in the MOS, or if the terms are liable to be confused with the colours of the same names. My view is consistent with many other Wikipedia articles that I have read, where the terms are not usually capitalised. However, if either is going to be capitalised then I think both should be. TWM03 (talk) 11:46, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@TWM03, generally we don't make this change, as it is as you've said controversial, unless there are good reasons for making a change. The reason I believe capitalizing Black/white makes sense for this particular article is that the article is actually about a racism topic and therefore we should be more sensitive to the issue and follow what most RS are currently doing, which is Black/white.

The recent changes were due to recent discussion. It doesn't really matter what you personally believe about this question, or what I personally believe. It doesn't matter what other articles use, per Wikipedia:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. What matters is that we have no consensus against using B/w and that changing it to your own personal preference is not okay without a good reason. Please ping on reply or I might miss it. —valereee (talk) 15:22, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

@Valereee, the essay you directed me to seems to be primarily about criteria for notability, rather than things relating to MOS, so I don't think it applies here. While there may be no consensus against B/w, there is certainly no consensus against b/w, and it seems to be the most common convention on Wikipedia. All the discussions relating to Wikipedia policy seemed to have most opinions opposing B/w, with no preference for either B/W or b/w over the other. This article is not about a racism topic to a greater extent than Racism in the United States, White people or Black people, all of which use the b/w convention, so your argument doesn't seem to be in accordance with majority opinion. I should also point out that both of us have changed the convention used in this article to something other than what it was previously (I changed it from B/W to b/w, then you changed it from b/w to B/w) without a consensus against the previous convention but giving a reason for the change, so I am unsure what I have done that is "not okay". Regarding your argument about reliable sources using B/w, from the article I linked it is clear that there is no consensus on which conventions to use by reliable sources. I am also unsure why points of grammar should be decided by usage in reliable news sources when they are considered authoritative for their accurate reporting of news stories and are not necessarily an authority on stylistic conventions. TWM03 (talk) 16:18, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:OTHERCONTENT is probably what you're looking for.

The most recent discussion at this talk page seems to have landed on capital B but no consensus on W/w. I support the use of B/w, but am willing to compromise to B/W. I oppose lowercase b generally and particularly in this case as there's so much quotation of sources using capital B. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 17:48, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Having considered the arguments more, I am now also leaning towards B/W as a compromise. This would be in line with the clear majority of reliable sources that use "Black" and the fact that sources disagree on whether to use "White" or "white", as well as satisfying the desire for consistency that I believe most editors agree on based on past discussions on this issue. The disadvantages of the compromise are (1) that it is not the convention most commonly used on Wikipedia, though this argument is discouraged by WP:OTHERCONTENT as it is possible that the majority of pages on Wikipedia that use these terms are "wrong", and (2) that as per MOS:CAPS terms should only be capitalised if they are capitalised in a "substantial majority" of sources, which "white" is not. However, I believe that this principle should be overruled in this case on the grounds that more broadly the policy on capitalisation states that it should only be used for grammatical reasons and not for emphasis, and since there is no grammatical difference in the function of the terms "Black" and "White" I believe both should be treated equally. Do you feel these arguments are valid? TWM03 (talk) 18:54, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

No objection to B/W. —valereee (talk) 20:18, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

References