Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-05-25/WikiProject report

WikiProject LGBT studies

One of Wikipedia's greatest strengths as a non-paper encyclopedia is that it is better equipped to "roll with the times"—that is, to cover current issues as they unfold. Few wikiprojects demonstrate this capacity better than

.

1. Recently, the

?

I think you have to see lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (

on a profound level. We know that our members get stressed and generally I think we try to support each other when we get frustrated and have to step back. It is also common to have someone trying to delete content, or even an article, or add some rather shockingly biased information. You simply have to disassociate enough to not take it personally. As members have energy for any project things progress; we have an astonishing range and volume of articles across all subject areas. Personally I believe part of the strength of both LGBTI communities and our project is that we are quite diverse. As Wikipedians we each have unique skills and I think we find ways to work with and support one another.

2. When you say that the project's members "try to support each other when [they] get frustrated", do you mean emotional support or collaborative efforts? Or both? How does one affect the other?

I think support in almost every form one can imagine and that certainly has led to offline friendships as well. I think at the end of it all Wikipedians look to a level of trust from each other. Members of LGBTI communities often go through extra stress because their lives are officially discounted in various ways. Although my experience may not match yours it is similar enough so we share that commonality. That might not translate into better collaborating but I believe it is shared enough that when someone is expressing frustration others do try to step in and see if there is some equitable resolution. We also disagree among ourselves at times so we each have our own projects and when someone asks for help we try to pitch in as time allows.

3. Biographies of LGBTI individuals are prone to very harmful vandalism. Do you think the project's biographies would benefit from the implementation of flagged or sighted revisions?

I can see some benefits in flagging article revisions and supported a trial implementation. On one hand this can curb a lot of nonsense vandalism, to me the downside is not being the encyclopedia anyone can edit. Some of the worst vandalism is when subtle slander is woven in and not caught or is otherwise masked as credible content. Our project's biggest issues tend to be editors removing content and context of a subject's sexuality and gender. We have to strike a balance based not just on truth but on reliable sources. With some biographies their sexuality is just another aspect of who they are, like if they grew up in a large family. It obviously plays some role but perhaps not as significant as an artist or activist whose career is focused on these issues. Often LGBTI people lead parallel lives to their non-LGBTI counterparts. They can be completely invisible to mainstream society unless they purposely are visible like at a pride parade and other community events. Similarly there exists entire media and entertainment structures for LGBTI communities including gay bars, newspapers and magazines. These were born out of necessity and remain an integral resource. In trying to source biographies these are invaluable for verification but most are not online and most small publishing businesses succomb to economic downturns closing them down. In the future I fully expect archives of these to be digitized and transcribed but until then we rely on researchers who do the unglamourous work of digging up these histories. To me the best way to counteract vandalism is to overwhelm with reliable sources and better writing. Ultimately this improves those articles.

4. Wikipedia's coverage of LGBTI-related topics seems to be expanding. So far in 2009, the number of articles tagged with the project's banner has risen by more than 300. Do you attribute this expansion to increased activity and progress within the LGBTI community or to Wikipedia's poor coverage of this area?

Both. LGBTI people are a fascinating minority worldwide and interest and news will continue to focus on issues of sexuality and gender variance. As such I anticipate more current events to be promulgated. Meanwhile there are quite a few

}} to an article's talkpage my suggestion is to go ahead and add it as we can always remove it if our project has no involvement. We strive to be a resource to assist all Wikipedians so feel free to ask for help and clarification.

5. You have worked also on articles that are not related to LGBT culture. What do you find to be different or challenging about writing LGBT-related articles? What skills have you learned from your work in this subject area?

Like most non-mainstream subjects the challenge is sourcing. Wikipedia has plenty of subject areas that are outside the mainstream so finding reliable sourcing that will withstand the test of time seems to be the biggest challenge. A large part of that as well is that much of the LGBTI history is never a part of mainstream history books due to various research bias and cultural taboos. If LGBTI people are discussed it is often in less than positive context. In some cultures we know about numbers of men arrested for crimes related to sexual acts with other men and in some cases this is the extent of what is known about LGBTI culture in that place at that time. Likely this was not the extent of LGBTI culture. Transgender and intersex people are sometimes identified as such only when they die or are brutally murdered and then it is reported, often sensationalized, in the media. So we have to dig to find sourcing to fill in the context of their lives as the most mainstream sourcing focuses on their death which is often a

aka "gays in the military" issue - when talking with actual military personel the men tend to be extremely worried that a gay guy would see them naked whereas the women tend to not be that concerned. When we get neutral research about these issues as well as what happens when you look at gender minorities in these context we see there are differences but they can align more to gender than sexuality or even be a mix of the two. These are all issues that compound the challenges of good writing and are recurring issues for the project.

I think some of the skills I've learned working in this subject area are a heightened awareness of dealing with

where I've learned to assess a bit more when content should be listified, merged or even deleted if it shows little promise of becoming a good article. I wouldn't have know about that project had it not been for several LGBTI articles being tagged for deletion. I think because of the subject area and the volume of articles watched by the project we almost always have several items slated for deletion.

6. Finally, how can inexperienced but eager editors help out with WikiProject LGBT studies?

I think visiting our

subjects, cleaning up our extensive categories, adding images, etc. Usually our work spills into all areas of the encyclopedia and likewise when we find a problem or solution that can benefit anyone else we are happy to collaborate and share. Personally I have some learning disabilities so I have to rely on others to do work I feel less than qualified for. We each can contribute significantly to the encyclopedia as we are able and we each have unique perspectives that indeed make the whole better as we build quality content. For any newer editor the starting step, in my opinion, is to help clean-up and do some "easy" fixing just to get the feel for editing here. Then as your comfort level increases, look at articles on which you feel well-informed, look to fixing any glaring mistakes. Not sure what to do? Learning how and where to ask for help is also part of the process. We were all new at one point and generally Wikipedians are quite friendly and helpful.

Correction: lesbian has indeed been rewritten but is presently at "good" article status in hopes that it will soon be a featured article.