Talk:Holly Lawford-Smith

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Notability[edit]

@StAnselm: I see you have some doubts about her notability. Her critical view on transgender issues has been a cause of great public controversy, and has triggered significant debate over academic freedom both in the Australian media and in her own profession. Some sources which might help demonstrate this:

The sources above are of varying quality, some are essentially opinion pieces written from a particular ideological perspective, but I think they are enough to demonstrate that she has garnered a lot of attention, especially of late. I think she's likely to garner more such attention in the future. (She does have philosophical interests in other topics; I have seen some citations of her work criticising COVID vaccination mandates, but nobody has paid anywhere remotely near as much attention to what she's had to say on that compared to what she's had to say on this.) Mr248 (talk) 10:48, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

... website called "No Conflict, They Said" that collects anonymous stories of the impacts on women of men using women-only spaces.[edit]

The previous (unsourced) version of this sentence read "... that collects anonymous stories of cisgender women who have felt threatened by transgender women in public spaces."

A secondary source activity of the website would be preferable to the current version, which draws from the website itself (ie is a Primary Source), however I cannot find a reliable NPOV secondary source. Editors are invited to remedy this lack. Springnuts (talk) 15:15, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really confused and surprised by your edits, Springnuts, and have reverted them because I do not feel they have a good justification. You introduced the text In February 2021 The Sydney Morning Herald stated inaccurately that the site was calling for cis women to share stories about feeling threatened by trans women, and claimed without evidence that most narratives referred to trans women as “men” and that many of the narratives were about encounters in toilets. However, this sentence is sourced to The Sydney Morning Herald, which most certainly does not say that its story is inaccurate and lacking in evidence. Thus, this is original research, and the wording is a particularly egregious instance of violating WP:NPOV.
Moreover, you ask for an "NPOV" secondary source, but NPOV is a guideline for Wikipedians, not for sources. You cannot find an "NPOV source" because none exist; all sources are biased. SMH, however, is generally reliable per WP:RSP—but that undersells it quite a bit. It is a newspaper of record and as high-quality a source as you can get, with a political bias towards the center of Australian politics.
In Wikipedia's words you wrote that SMH "claimed without evidence" something, but this is another concerning misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. We aggregate secondary sources, which are the evidence as far as we are concerned. It is the SMH's job to have professional fact-checking and editorial processes, and once we are convinced that they do, we take what they say as evidence. But moreover, we have not even been using the source as Wikipedia's words, but merely relaying what they say, with the preface: "The Sydney Morning Herald found that..." That the SMH found something to be true is indisputable.
I don't understand your other comments either; the whole paragraph is sourced to SMH, so it simply isn't true that it was "unsourced". You ask for a secondary source description but that was exactly what you removed. — Bilorv (talk) 16:33, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Bilorv - my bad in doing a lot at once. Might we look first at the edit here: [[1]]. The website itself solicits stories in these terms "impacts on women of men using women-only spaces, ... how your use of women-only spaces has been impacted" (I ran a check on wayback machine and the text is unchanged). The open letter accurately reflects this: (I have added the letter as a reference). SMH reported as fact the wording we use on the site; that it is soliciting stories of "cisgender women who have felt threatened by transgender women in public spaces". I can't find that phrasing used elsewhere except in material derivative from SMH. The website itself and the open letter must be better sources; the SMH article is the opinion of the journalist about what the website is really soliciting. We might, I suppose, report that - but separately to the description used by the website and those who objected to it. How about: ...
In February 2021, Lawford-Smith launched a website called "No Conflict, They Said" to collect anonymous stories of the impacts on women of men using women-only spaces. In response, a number of academics from her institution signed an open letter to the University of Melbourne's leadership condemning the website as transphobic, and arguing that it "contravenes the University's Appropriate Workplace Behaviour Policy and raises serious questions about research integrity at the University."[1] The Sydney Morning Herald characterised the site as collecting stories of cisgender women who have felt threatened by transgender women in public spaces and said that most stories on the website misgendered transgender women, and many related to bathroom usage.[2] Springnuts (talk) 22:29, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Google Docs is not reliable/usable, per Special:Diff/1087750668. (There's no protection against linkrot or content change and no proof that any signature was added by the person it claims to be.) I removed it reflexively before seeing it was you that added it and there was justification here.
It doesn't really matter what the website describes itself as. It matters what it is, as described by secondary sources. I see no issue with material derivative from SMH agreeing with the description—that adds reliability, rather than removing it. It is part of the evidence that SMH is an exemplary source, hugely trusted among journalists.
The website does not collect stories of "men using women-only spaces", so we should not be describing it as such. It collects stories of women using women-only spaces, as described by SMH. — Bilorv (talk) 08:32, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have a hunt for a better source for the open letter, but I haven't seen any policy which forbids the use of Google Docs and we often use a poor source if that is all there is, at least until a better one comes along (and even Deprectated Sources should not be removed unthinkingly: WP:DEPS). In the meantime there is clearly dispute about what the website collects, and the text I suggested above recognises that the website itself says one thing (a valid application of WP:SELFSOURCE), and a SMH says another. Do you feel this is unacceptable, and if so, why? Springnuts (talk) 14:03, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Google Docs is just a platform for user-generated content. Anyone can put anything on Google Docs. There is no means to validate who wrote or published the letter or that it has not been altered in any way. It is not an acceptable source. Schazjmd (talk) 14:39, 14 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This diff [[2]] covers the recent changes up to now.

  • I have (ironically for an open letter) been unable to track down a better source than the web archived version of the google doc.
  • It must - I suggest - be as unencyclopedic not to cover the website's invitation in its own terms (ie to contributors to submit "stories of women who have felt threatened by men who identify or attempt to appear as women in public spaces") as it would be unencyclopedic not to report the SMH characterisation of the stories submitted (... related by cisgender women who had felt threatened by transgender women, and many related to bathroom usage).
  • We don't deal very well with the SMH article: there's more in it than we cover (not least the apparent response of the university), and we also put something of a spin on the article in one or two places. I'll have a hunt for any more coverage or discussion (ie elsewhere).

Please can we discuss here to find consensus before reverting/developing. Friendly regards to all, Springnuts (talk) 06:51, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I continue to object to your changes. It must - I suggest - be as unencyclopedic not to cover the website's invitation in its own terms ... as it would be unencyclopedic not to report the SMH characterisation of the stories submitted is a strange equivalence. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, as referenced by the term "unencyclopedic", and encyclopediae aggregate secondary sources, not (generally) primary sources. Thus, it is not "unencyclopedic" to use secondary sources in place of primary sources, but precisely the opposite. — Bilorv (talk) 20:34, 19 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sDbh6iO9bYvStZyeiI4We5Z9EgxEfk1UhvjtO1zJyMI/edit
  2. ^ Quinn, Karl (25 February 2021). "'Transphobic' website puts Melbourne University academics at odds". Sydney Morning Herald.
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