Talk:Gay/Archive 1

message: I noticed that Beland removed this article from the LGBT category, and that AlexR reverted that change, citing "another annoying removal of categories."  Looking at the category structure as it sits now, Homosexuality is a subcategory of LGBT.  I'm new here, so perhaps I'm mistaken on the finer points, but my understanding is that an article should generally not be placed in both a category and a corresponding subcategory.  It seems to me that the article for "gay" fits more neatly into the Homosexuality category than the much broader LGBT category.  Any other thoughts?
--Azkar 17:21, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent category changes / revert 

message: The second paragraph (The term gay...) starts off well, but quickly veers into a discussion on the LGBT community, which is not what this page is about. It also quickly loses NPOV after this point; even if this page is not somehow merged with another, this paragraph should probably go. Turnstep 13:45, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
:You're right.  It looks like there were a series of edits by an anonymous user (216.231.62.12) that should probably all be deleted ...  --Azkar 23:32, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Off topic/ POV paragraph 

message: Until I see consensus to redirect/merge/etc, I am restoring this article in full. Discuss here please--Tznkai 16:15, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm reverting the rest as we speak, and have deleted the duplicate Gay (homosexual).--Bishonen | talk 18:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A cut-and-paste copy of this talk page is still at Talk:Gay (homosexual).  I imagine that can go, too.  --Azkar 20:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Going, going, gone. Bishonen | talk 21:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

text: * Actually, there are good reasons for the various kinds of disambiguation pages, and you will have to live with the fact that most people like it that way. Also, should the term shift its meaning significantly in the future, there is no reason why the problem can't be solved then with a different kind of disambiguation. -- AlexR 04:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

text: *Indeed, adjective, and I am pretty sure that is what I wanted to write - but I always sucked at keeping the two apart, in four languages. Grammaticaly, that is, I use them correctly usualy. Anyway, "Gay" in the sense of homosexual or male/male or however you want to define it is pretty often used as a noun, although indeed when refering to people most prefer the adjective use. OTOH, using gay as a noun in the sense of happiness is pretty rare, to put it mildly. Guess my argument therefore mostly stands. And seriously, you should get yourself a username, but even if you don't, there is nothing that keeps you from at least signing your articles with  -- ~~~~ . -- AlexR 04:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirection Canceled 

message: Now it seems that we have two articles, one gay and one gay (homosexual), the second one being a copy of the first, without the disambig notice. Also, links are already changed, which is not a good idea at all, since there is no consensus whatever. -- AlexR 17:35, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm reverting the rest as we speak, and have deleted the duplicate Gay (homosexual).--Bishonen | talk 18:27, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A cut-and-paste copy of this talk page is still at Talk:Gay (homosexual).  I imagine that can go, too.  --Azkar 20:04, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Going, going, gone. Bishonen | talk 21:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

text: * Actually, there are good reasons for the various kinds of disambiguation pages, and you will have to live with the fact that most people like it that way. Also, should the term shift its meaning significantly in the future, there is no reason why the problem can't be solved then with a different kind of disambiguation. -- AlexR 04:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

text: *Indeed, adjective, and I am pretty sure that is what I wanted to write - but I always sucked at keeping the two apart, in four languages. Grammaticaly, that is, I use them correctly usualy. Anyway, "Gay" in the sense of homosexual or male/male or however you want to define it is pretty often used as a noun, although indeed when refering to people most prefer the adjective use. OTOH, using gay as a noun in the sense of happiness is pretty rare, to put it mildly. Guess my argument therefore mostly stands. And seriously, you should get yourself a username, but even if you don't, there is nothing that keeps you from at least signing your articles with  -- ~~~~ . -- AlexR 04:45, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Duplicated article now?

message: This article is a mess.  The intro is confusing, unencyclopaedic, and factually incorrect.  What's going on here?  Exploding Boy 04:15, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
:It is a bit rambly, isn't it? Which bits do you think belong elsewhere? --FOo 04:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What the hell??

message: This section is entirely out of sync with the Wiktionary article on the etymology. -- Beland 06:10, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup request: Word origins 

message: Why is there a page called "Gay", a page called "Homosexuality", and a page called "Lesbian?" Surely these pages can be merged somewhow. Frenchman113 00:51, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
:Because these are three different words which do mean different things? Sure you could merge them -- the same way you could merge Ford, General Morors and Mercedes Benz. They may be similiar, but not same, so maybe we better keep them that way. Read the articles if you want to know the differences. -- AlexR 05:14, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple articles 

message: I'm willing to give the clean-up a whirl. I worked for the University of Ottawa Pride Centre for a number of years and did a lot of their sensitivity training, and I have an English degree to boot. Please, by all means, constructive discussion is appreciated, I'm just going to try and put the article in sensible order. I'm also removing the link to www.sataniclust.com... the article is okay, but I'm sure everyone wants to relate gay to satan and I'm sure someone can find something a little more academic. --Waterspyder 18:45, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Waterspyder, I'm glad we're in agreement and I hope we can clean this article up.  I totally agree with you on the sexual orientation issue.  I think this also applies to the 'Gay Community and the World' section of this article.  There's already a whole article called "Gay community."  So, does this section need to be merged with that article or just removed (assuming that the article covers at least the same material.  It seems to be a bit off topic.  I think it's ok to mention 'Gay Community' and link to it.  What do ya think?  --Robby 23:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry about the long delay... I went to take a peek, and you're right, that section definitely makes more sense on gay community than it does on this page. So I'll start by importing the relevent information to the new article. --Waterspyder 05:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No worries on the long delay.  Glad to see you're learning the ropes.  I have only recently begun to learn as well.  What other suggestions do you have on getting this article cleaned up?  --Robby 05:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I already moved material over to the gay community page, so I think I'll take it off of here today. I mean, that's a really good start. I think there has to be a better way of organizing the use of the word "gay". I think the page's primary purpose is to define the word "gay" in it's extraordinary complexity, (differentiate it versus homosexual, denotation and connotations). If it were just the denotations then this would be easy. Maybe I'll have a better idea after I read terminology of homosexuality. --Waterspyder 20:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Waterspyder, that gay community section looks so much better.  What a great start!  I agree.  This article is about the word/term "gay" and it's 'extraordinary complexity' as you put it.  I'll read terminology of homosexuality too.  I was thinking that maybe we could find a word article with complexity similar to this one to see how that one is done.  There doesn't seem to be a very good template on how to explain a word like "gay".  Just a thought.  --Robby 22:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

text: "Improper usage" seems non-neutral (though of course I agree that it's improper). Tlogmer 02:51, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Valid point though! I guess we could call the entire heading "Pejorative Usage". Maybe change "Proper Usage" to "Commonly Accepted Usage" or "Accepted Usage". It's really funny to write something, that even if you slip and insert a POV that no one will really argue with, you're still not supposed to do it. --Waterspyder 15:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup? 

message: the article claims the pejorative usage of gay = anything negative is 1990's.  this is totally untrue; i remember this usage when i was in grade school, c. 1980.
Benwing 03:07, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it fair to propose a change then to include the origin of the pejorative use to be the 1980s? --Waterspyder 01:44, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to see a reference for this timeline that isn't original research. Guanaco 15:49, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  timeline of "gay" as pejorative? 

message: So does anyone else have any suggestions for the clean-up, or is this finally a well-structured article and entitled to remove the tag? --Waterspyder 21:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is pretty good.  I added some more wiki links.  Are there any other things that anyone can think of that this article should or should not cover?  I think it would be cool if we could have a picture of something in this article.  Like a button or something like that.  Or is that stupid? It looks good, though. Good job Waterspyder! :-) --RobbyPrather 02:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Pictures are good and are visually stimulating. This being said, we don't want anything that is not directly related to the article. This is not the article on homosexuality (which is in dire need of help, holy POV), whis is more on the modern societal usage of gay. Now, something like "That's so gay" would fit in the pejorative section, or some other witty caatchphrase. I'm sure there are other things that would fit, I'm just not being creative enough right now.--Waterspyder 16:58, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I was thinking...  the Etymology section has the text: "Sometimes, histories of word origins..." in italics.  Do we really need this?  Is it a quote?  Why is it in italics?  Just a few questions. :-) --RobbyPrather 03:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, frankly, it doesn't need to be in italics. I think that the statement is just trying to bring to light that the root of this word was very little bearing on the meaning today. I removed the italics, and it could be useful to have the statement reworded a bit for clarity.--Waterspyder 16:58, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Waterspyder, I think this article does look much, much better and I agree with your removing the clean-up tag.  Good work. --RobbyPrather (talk) 04:28, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup Complete 

message: Any ideas on how to make the notice at the beginning of the article more effective?  It seems like it should convey to novice users (1) the fact that editing wikipedia is allowed (i.e. that they haven't somehow hacked the system) (2) respectability and official-ness (a sort of giulianni-esque grafitti prevention technique) (3) the fact that users are not completely anonymous, even if they're not logged in. Tlogmer 12:40, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Preventing vandalism 

message: ... still do not illiminate the pejoritive usage, or offensiveness. Attempted to document that. --Chèvredansante 15:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternate Spellings 

message: I noticed we seem to have had a lot of vandals for christmas. Not just one here but other articles too, although gay-related is a popular target.
Does anyone else think that's sad, or is it just me? Tom 00:14, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Definitely possible 1. After all, homophobes and other bigots are yellow-bellied subhuman cowards by definition. E. Sn0 =31337= 02:08, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Happy Christmas to us