Talk:Nadine Gordimer/Archive 2

message: This is really unproductive.  User:70.23.177.216, I agree with User:DianaW that there is no good justification for putting this material in repeatedly.  We've taken it out and justified the removal. You responded to User:DianaW with a long rambling diatribe that made a lot of assertions about Wikipedia generally, and was not responsive to the reasons this particular text should be in this particular article.  You never responded to my points that (a) random criminal assaults on a notable person are not, themselves, notable; (b) the race of the perpetrators of even a notable criminal assault is not, itself, notable; and (c) commentary that race of perpetrators is "ironic" is just a perspective, a POV, and is not notable.   It's also completely inappropriate for you to describe it as "reverting vandalism"; it is not vandalism for me to delete something, with justification. If you think this information is notable, then you need to rewrite it in such a way that it responds to our objections.  You might consider, for example, adding more information about Nadine Gordimer's current life in England; classes she's taught; personal associates; and other information that is of comparable notability to a criminal assault.  But just putting in one criminal assault, and no other information, falsely conveys the impression that this incident is more notable than many other things in her life.  It is, in short, ascribing notability to the event solely because of the race.  That view is well-captured by the "ironic" quote but it's patently assigning significance based on race. That's not in keeping with Wikipedia policy.  Here are a few relevant policies: Wikipedia: Biographies of living persons and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Examples and Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles (I haven't seen any controversy over this point other than here in this talk page, so I don't think you can rewrite it as a "controversy") and Wikipedia:NPOV dispute and Wikipedia:Describing points of view.  I have zero interest in writing this and putting it in because I think it's completely uninteresting, non-notable, and a not-subtle attempt to push a racist POV. You think it's interesting, so you need to write it in such a way that it lives up to the standards of every peer editor who might see it.  Right now it's not. You need to REWRITE, not continue putting in the same text. Characterizing your peer editors as pushing an anti-white POV is not addressing the problem. 
If this continues, I'm going to call for some administrative or dispute resolution or whatever. --LQ 14:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about a Request for Comment? Maybe we should give it another day or two to see if this person keeps it up. There really can't be any doubt that the event is not notable as encyclopedia content, even if there weren't this titillating detail for racists to glom onto about the fact that her attackers' skin color was different from hers. This anonymous user has ranted about so-called anti-white racism elsewhere on wikipedia but hasn't advanced any arguments at all on this talk page for the inclusion of the report of the attack in this article, for racial reasons or any other conceivable reason. He/she certainly doesn't dispute that the racial aspect is what interests him/her. (Incidentally, Nadine Gordimer lives in a suburb of Johannesburg. She was an anti-apartheid activist for decades. This is the "irony," I presume, that the anonymous user sees in her being attacked by black men.)DianaW 15:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah, yes, Wikipedia:Requests for comment looks like the right process - thanks, User:DianaW, I'm still digging around to learn all the various policies. If User:70.23.177.216 adds the material in again I'll do an RFC (or you can, or they can, or whatever). --LQ 15:25, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The rfc was posted, but User:70.23.177.216 has added the material back in twice since it was posted, neither time adding any explanation or making any changes that addressed earlier critiques of the material.  Rather than engaging in a revert-war, I've added a heading and a NPOV dispute on the section.  That does not mean I think the material is here legitimately. User:70.23.177.216 added it in, repeatedly, without changing it to address the fundamental critiques about perspective, and without ever proffering any reason why the incident itself is at all relevant. I've only left it in there (with a heading & POV dispute template) until we can get other evaluation besides the 3 of us. --LQ 13:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Did you post the Rfc, or did the anonymous poster do it?DianaW 14:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The anonymous poster posted the RFC here but not on the RFC page; I added it there. Still no response. I also looked into the RFC procedures for users and see that there need to be at least two attempts to resolve the conflict on the user's page before going that route. Since User:70.23.177.216 won't respond here to the substantive complaints I posted on the user's page. This is very frustrating. --LQ 14:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The described event does not appear to have had any significant impact on Ms Gordimer's life.  Unless someone can show that it is of any relevance, my opinion is that it should be deleted. Sprotch 13:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  stop the revert wars 

message: * The described event does not appear to have had any significant impact on Ms Gordimer's life.  Unless someone can show that it is of any relevance, my opinion is that it should be deleted. Sprotch 13:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Outside comments

message: It's been two weeks since an outside commentator looked at this.  We currently have five folks saying the current text is not notable, and one person saying it is.  One of the other commenters took the information out; it should stay out until someone offers some rewrite that meets the criteria laid out above (showing the attack had a significant impact on Gordimer's life). --lquilter 05:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: summing up RFC

message: * Okay, I'm reorganizing the article. Someone else has added another current event. So, I've left in the information about the robbery without the extraneous and POV detail. I've also rephrased the biography article - she's not really trying to get it banned. --lquilter 15:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just fixed them -- I had forgotten to include the references section, although I'd used the <ref> format. --lquilter 02:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your work, LQuilter, it looks nice. I still don't think, even without the racial commentary, the robbery is notable by wikipedia standards. I mean undoubtedly it affected her *personally* but then probably so have a great many other things that do not rise to the level of notability in an encyclopedia. Would we include it on her wikipedia page if she had an illness or an operation, a friend or relative died, her dog was hit by a car etc etc? Lots of things can shake a person up in life. Outside of major life events - birth, marriage, children, major moves, major career milestones, death - to be relevant in the biography of an author the event has to either affect her work directly or affect her life in such a way that its impact on her work can be traced - and by legitimate sources. It can't just be random stuff that could happen to anyone like getting mugged or having an accident. News accounts from a few days or weeks after such an event won't reflect any such possible relevance in any case. As I've said before the robbery could in fact turn out to impact her work or her views but it would be some time before any effects were observable, and hence before any wikipedia-appropriate source reported on them. Perhaps it could be reconsidered if or when she publishes her next book, or makes any statements about it. Thus far, its discernible effect is nil, which stands to reason 2 months later. (And the race of the people who attacked her will never have anything to do with anything, and thus will almost certainly never become mentionable here.)DianaW 04:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, well, I agree that the robbery information is not really notable.  By putting it in a "recent news" section, I thought maybe it could hang out until it wasn't recent news any more, and then assess it for notability. I also thought that it would be easier for people to justify their additions or deletions on the notability if it didn't have the race information. It would have been nice to stop this revert warring. --lquilter 16:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I guess somebody removed "Recent news"? It wasn't me - I didn't want to go on reverting either. I think, though, that we really only have one person who ever thought it belonged in the article at all and the wiser course is not to ever agree to include it at all. Based on experience in a recent arbitration case, I have to say if something is very controversial it's probably best not to compromise unwillingly on something you're positive about and are positive community opinion will ultimately back you up on. I'm not sure if that's "wikipedian" or not but that's my attitude. There's no doubt at all that this information does not belong in this article, unless or until it becomes possible to verify that it had some notable impact on her life or career. The controversy about the new biography is another matter; that's certainly notable, and I wish I had time to write that up properly, but I don't right now.DianaW 02:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: reorganizing article

message: Once again, anonymous editor 70.23.199.239 has inserted the paragraph.  Nobody is trying to "suppress all knowledge" -- for one thing, it's all here on the talk page; for another, it could well be listed at WikiNews.  Multiple editors on this page have repeatedly stated their opinion that this information is not relevant because it is not notable in Gordimer's life.  Editors who feel this material should be included need to respond to the various reasons offered why it is not, at this point, notable.  The onus is on the editor(s) seeking inclusion of the material. --lquilter 14:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand why someone would think it is relevant, but imo Wikinews might be enough. Anyway, the paragraph that's been inserted is way too long. Maybe just add a short, "although she was mugged last..." ? Also, imo the disappointing thing about this article is that it is very short - not that we should dwell on her biography/life, but there is no section on her work (the indiosyncrasies of her style, etc) and no quote. I know this is not Wikiquote, but some important quotes would be nice. I will  try to work towards that aim when I have time. Zigzig20s 15:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: attack & racial identity of attackers paragraph

message: * User 70.23.199.239, we have had this discussion many times.  You are the only editor who has defended the inclusion of this content.  Yes, some number originally put the material in, but none of them have responded on the talk page to justify having it in.  Those of us who have edited it out have pointed out #1 that criminal assaults are not normally notable in biographical entries; and #2 that the race of the parties is also not relevant.  Nobody but you has argued, and you have never responded to point #1, and your only response to point #2 is that we are trying to conceal Black-on-White race violence -- a personal attack.  We have taken this to an RFC and other editors have come on.  To date, you (under two IP addresses, 70.23.199.239 and 70.23.177.216) think it should be included; DianaW, Sprotch, Doldrums, Taxico, trueblood, Skapur,  Zigzig20s, and myself have all said it should not for the reasons stated.  This isn't a vote, but you are clearly in the minority in terms of defending this content.  You have now reverted three times in one day, [inserted for accuracy]coming close to violating WP:3RR literally as you have been violating it in spirit for more than a month now.  --lquilter 23:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Comment - One of the commonly-stated justifications for racial segregation by its proponents (as well as by its de facto practitioners, e.g., whites who flee to predominantly white suburbs in racially diverse nations) is the link between race and crime. The issue is not whether criminals who happen to be black prey preferentially on whites, or are motivated particularly by race; the evidence suggests they don't/aren't: law-abiding blacks left behind in decaying urban cores endure much higher crime victimization rates than the whites who fled to the suburbs. If black-on-white crime has increased in South Africa after the end of apartheid (has it?), then it could indeed be seen by some as ironic that an anti-apartheid activist would herself fall victim to the very phenomenon that proponents of apartheid probably once claimed to be protecting her from. (Not everyone would see this as ironic, but surely we are broadminded enough to admit the possibility that a substantial number of people would see this as ironic. Whether they should see this as ironic is a different issue, just as the existence of flat earth proponents is a fact even though most educated people reject the idea of a flat Earth.) According to White flight#White flight elsewhere in the world, The phenomenon is also found in South African cities, most notably Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, which saw a mass influx of Black African people into the inner cities during the final years of apartheid, and from which white people fled in great numbers to the suburbs (or out of the country altogether). The migration of "great numbers" of white South Africans seems notable enough; indeed,  says: Gordimer today lives in Johannesburg, one of the cities which white South Africans are allegedly fleeing. The attack on Gordimer could be notable for helping to fan the fears that are driving this notable migration, because some might take it to show that even being internationally recognized as a champion of the downtrodden confers no protection from criminal members thereof. Certainly, this troubling event in Gordimer's life is at least as notable as the other seemingly inconsequential biographical tidbits the article includes without controversy. Gordimer claims the attack does not change her views on apartheid; but what if the attack is having a notable impact on the perceptions of some South African whites? What if someone is notably using it for propaganda value? And why does the article tell us that Gordimer's parents are Jewish, or that they feared she had a weak heart as a child? Do those tidbits relate to the massive reshaping of South African demographics which is underway right now, the way the attack on Gordimer does? The same sorts of Wikipedia policy objections could be raised against including those details. Why must the robbery report pass a much harder test of worth than these other items? It's more disturbing to some people, no doubt, but Wikipedia contains lots of material disturbing to lots of people. --Teratornis 03:03, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But this article isn't about racial segregation or integration or white flight or SA apartheid, so I fail to see the relevance here. The relevance you're suggesting is not to Nadine Gordimer, but to articles on Johannesburg, white flight, and so on. The "what if"'s you mention -- if indeed this incident were being significantly touted in its own newsworthy way then we should evaluate that for inclusion, but as far as I can tell this incident basically has died from the press and lives on only here in Wikipedia talk.  As for the other information (e.g., her parentage or weak heart as a child), if you think some of it is irrelevant, take it out. Irrelevant information does not justify the inclusion of other irrelevant information. FWIW, parental athnicity is a typically-listed basic biographical fact in many short biographies. The being kept at home business, as I understand it, led to her having an interest in writing. --lquilter 19:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: summary (1/23) of Talk on attack & race of attackers