User talk:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist

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Welcome!

Hello, TheTranarchist, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, please see our help pages, and if you can't find what you are looking for there, please feel free to ask me on my talk page or place {{Help me}} on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome! Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 04:25, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Some tips on editing controversial topics

Hello, TheTranarchist, and welcome to Wikipedia! Tl;dr: thanks for your contributions, but you're making some newbie mistakes in the areas of WP:NPOV and WP:DUE especially, and spending too much time changing the WP:LEAD of mature, contentious topics. Also, controversial topics are inherently difficult for anyone to edit, and much more so for new editors. Here are some explanations of what I see going on, and how to get back on track. Now for the gory details:

Thanks very much for your contributions attempting to improve Wikipedia's coverage of trans issues. In particular, thanks for your use of edit summaries to explain your changes; they are invaluable as a method of communicating with other editors, and are something that many new editors only learn later, so kudos for getting on board with this right away, and keep up the good work! Secondly, bravo for responding to another editor at Talk:Conversion therapy to explain in further detail your intentions on improving the article; this is a good example of discussion, which is a core principle of how Wikipedia editors collaborate to improve articles.

I noticed your edit to Conversion therapy, which is on my WP:Watch list (as is pretty much every article you have edited). In my opinion, this edit provided an WP:UNDUE amount of coverage to sexual orientation conversion in the WP:LEADSENTENCE of the article, and did not reflect the preponderance of reliable sources on the topic, so I removed it. I explained my reasoning briefly in the edit summary, and in more detail on the Talk page in the same discussion you previously responded to.

As you are a brand new here and I enjoy helping new editors get on board with the maze of rules and other things to learn here, I checked your contributions and looked at your recent edit to Transgender youth, and found I had to undo it for reasons explained in the summary. I haven't looked at your other contributions. Two edits isn't enough information to see a pattern, but both edits seemed to me to express a point of view based on a desire for fairness and equality towards trans people, issues, or visibility, possibly with a desire to put right some injustices, or promote visibility of trans issues. While highly laudable in the RW, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and for better or worse, is not about fairness, equality, or righting wrongs, but rather is about adding encyclopedic content to notable topics by summarizing the majority (and significant minority) opinion of what reliable sources have to say about a topic. Sometimes this might not accord with the way we view things, or the way we wish things were, but our job as editors here is to reflect what the reliable sources say, and ignore or own opinions and biases.

You seem to already understand what WP:Verifiability and citations are all about, so that's really good, so next step for you, I think, is to take a deep dive into WP:Neutral point of view, paying special attention to WP:DUE WEIGHT, as it is in these two areas where I believe you have tripped up. It's really important to understand these principles, and if there's a problem, nip it in the bud, because if it becomes a bad habit, it can end up causing you problems and becomes more difficult to change later.

It's also kind of a newbie mistake to head straight for the WP:LEAD of an article, or even the WP:FIRSTSENTENCE, without having contributed much to the article body, or even knowing much about the history of it, or what Talk page discussions have already taken place about it. (See also WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY.) For example, Conversion therapy has been edited by over a thousand editors since it was first created in 2001 in the dawn of Wikipedia (shout-out to Ed Poor, whose original version is still essentially accurate), and has 385 editors watching it now. Beyond that, editing any part of a conversial topic is difficult, and heading straight for the lead only more so. (And if that weren't enough, WP:Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions may also apply.)

Speaking of that: as hard as it is to get on board as a new Wikipedia editor, editing controversial topics such as trans-related issues, is even harder, so I urge you to step with caution, and be guided by other editors who can help you. Maybe avoid editing the WP:LEAD of trans topics for a while, until you have gained more experience contributing to the body of articles, know something about how the article got that way, have read through the Talk page archives, and understand what the perennial issues are. There's much more I could say, but this is probably more than enough for right now. Just know that I've been editing articles on gender-related and trans topics for ten years or so, and general topics longer than that, so I'm pretty familiar both with general Wikipedia policies and guidelines, as well as the particularities of editing trans topics. Finally, given your contributions in your short history here, I'm pretty much obliged to leave you the message appearing in the next section; don't be alarmed, everyone gets one of these sooner or later. Feel free to call on me at any time for support or if you have questions about editing at Wikipedia generally, or on trans topics in particular. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Standard notice about editing gender-related topics

Hi again. As promised, here is your message about editing on gender-related topics. Normally, I avoid adding this notice for brand new users, but since virtually all of your edits are to trans topics, it's better you learn about this sooner, rather than later after bumping into some restriction you never heard of, or attracting the wrong kind of attention from an Admin. Don't worry, this is not about doing anything wrong, it's about making sure you are aware of this, so please just read it and follow the links. It's intended to be self-explanatory, but please contact me if there is anything you don't understand. Cheers!

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in gender-related disputes or controversies or in people associated with them. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor. Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)