On 5/15/12 6:35 PM, Laura Hale wrote:
From a gender gap perspective of bringing in new female contributors,
I would argue that Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are much more
important than Imlay because Gaga and Bieber are of interest to and
more accessible to a greater audience than Imlay's article is. I would
further argue that it is a bit elitist to dismiss the importance of
improving such articles like Bieber and issues around such articles
like Bieber while focusing on narrowly scoped articles that are of
limited interest and limited ability to attract a large female
audience. We might have issues of educational privilege and class
amongst participants here that mean we do not adequately address those
outside our own backgrounds.
Hi everyone. I don't think anyone is arguing the importance of Justin
Bieber and Lady Gaga and the attraction that primarily young women have
towards them. Those articles are also protected, meaning that young
women who are new to editing most likely wouldn't be able to edit them.
I also could argue that Lady Gaga could be used to also attract young
gay boys into editing too. :D (And Gaga is a good article, needing
little improvement it seems!)
I believe it's the Twitter account focus that people are a bit confused
by. I have a feeling a lot of young women aren't going to be interested
in editing articles about the Twitter habits of their favorite
celebrities, but more so the life story of those people. Alas, I don't
have any specific research to back that theory though. I just am saying
it from my own experience as being having my own celebrity obsessions
when I was a young kid. I wouldn't quite go as far to say we have
systemtic bias towards Bieber or Gaga content, either. I think we all
struggle with trying to maintain articles about lesser known figures -
whether scientists or sports figures.
But, in the spirit of "can o' worms" perhaps Twitter articles for
celebrities are a slippery slope. I have a feeling that if we get Bieber
Twitter then we get a Bieber's hair article too =) (technically his
hair is notable.)
-Sarah
On Wednesday, May 16, 2012, Lady of Shalott wrote:
I have to say that I think a topic such as Imlay, with literally
centuries of scholarship is not really comparable to the recentism
that is an article on a Twitter account, whether Bieber's or Gaga's.
LadyofShalott/ Aleta Turner
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Nathan <[email protected]
<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', '[email protected]');>> wrote:
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Laura Hale
<[email protected] <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'[email protected]');>> wrote:
Been there. Done that. It isn't only women's topics.
Because Justin Bieber is unpopular and actively disliked
by some people, (Though I guess you could argue this
example relates to a topic of interest to many young
girls) there was an attempt to merge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber_on_Twitter in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber , with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Justin_Bieber#Merger_proposal
making it clear the reason is "I don't like this." The
article had about 100 sources around the time the article
was nominated for merge. Lady Gaga, the most followed
person on Twitter and woo hoo female to boot! has had
other people ask why the article isn't deleted. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lady_Gaga_on_Twitter#Request_for_deletion:_Is_this_page_really_relevant.3F
. I have another topic I wrote on where the regional
women's stuff should be generic to all women playing the
sport or to the region. If neither article currently
exist, [[WP:SOFIXIT]] by creating the new and relevant
articles.
Information is power and what is on Wikipedia has the
potential to shape greater understanding around issues.
Thus, a battle for what should and should not be there.
Wow, YMMV, but I think it's really odd to have whole long
articles devoted to a Twitter account. What is and isn't
broken out from "main topic" articles is often controversial,
whether criticism sections or detailed information on
specifically consequential periods, but an article on a
Twitter account is an outlier in my reading experience.
One of the arguments on the talk page for Fanny Imlay was that
the sources cited included information about her only
incidentally in the course of covering other people, as
opposed to being primarily about her (presumably with the
exception of the biography). I don't know enough about the
subject or the sources to know if this is the case, but it's
an argument that might apply to "Justin Bieber on Twitter."
The articles discussing his Twitter usage are really about
Justin Bieber and his behavior, not his Twitter account. See
for example[1], a short mention in Ashton Kutcher's bio about
his Twitter use. Kutcher is also among the most prominent
users of that service in its history, but there is no article
devoted to it. Rather than seeing the merge proposal as an
example of "I don't like it," I think the fact that it failed
demonstrates the power of a gigantic fanbase to distort normal
practice on a wiki.
~Nathan
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence
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