Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/USS Illinois (BB-65)

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Pronouns

• Comment—Many of our female readers, and those male readers who are not driven by mid-20th-century orthodoxy, will be profoundly offended by the continual use of she and her to refer to the ship. Is it a metaphor for what boys in uniforms see themselves as controlling, riding, fucking? Because it certainly looks that way. I myself find it a distasteful and quite unnecessary intrusion that could easily be foregone by a few neat lexical and grammatical substitutions. It matters not a jot that navy boys and their male friends might traditionally use this metaphor, how long they have done so for, or the linguistic origins of the underlying fantasy: what might give them a subtle, erectile sense of superiority can't help but reinforce the notion that it is unnatural for women break through the ceiling and become equal partners in the workforce, the economy and the culture. It's disappointing to see WP reinforcing this kind of indulgence. Tony (talk) 13:34, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Do you want some salt and vinegar for those chips on your shoulder? To be honest, I think only the most ardent of feminists would have a problem with calling ships "her" and I think your characterisation and generalisation is downright offensive to anyone who has ever served on any ship of any kind. Whilst I know that Lloyd's List has changed to neutral, I think it is stil very common to use the she. It is tradition that is borne from many different sources and traditions. To say that it is down to some sort of male fantasy is a grossly indulgent fantasy in itself Tony. I also think you have chosen the most incorrect form of forum for this conversation, it is abhorrent. Woody (talk) 14:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for illustrating exactly the kind of mentality I was referring to. It seems I might have unmanned a few users in the process. Tony (talk) 15:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Does that have anything to do with this FAC, or are you just using the discussion as a platform for your views about ship pronouns? Kindly take it elsewhere and stick to the matter at hand. The Land (talk) 16:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Unmanned" a few users??? Please tone down your offensive language and personal attacks. I do support neutral pronouns for inanimate objects in all articles with the exception of direct quotes, but this is not the way to do it. This is a grammar issue best dealt with at the MOS-level, not in a article FA to make a point of scoring points. Complaining about supposed offensive language toward women while spouting far worse offensive remarks towards men in general is the worse kind of hypocrisy, and certainly counter-productive. Have you had an ARBCOM lately? You're certainly headed that way! - BillCJ (talk) 18:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I have a lot of respect for you, and the issue you raise is obviously of some merit (as it comes up every now and then), but the manner in which you've broached this is really quite confrontational and shocking. I was far more disturbed by your one paragraph than I have ever been in 30+ years of seeing 'she' used for ships—and I am a member of your supposedly 'offended' class. You haven't 'unmanned' anyone here—only offended people by attributing the worst possible motives. Please, let's discuss this in a more appropriate venue, and without casting aspersions. There's no need for such vitriol on anyone's part. Maralia (talk) 20:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• I have asked Tony if he wouldn't mind archiving this conversation using the Template:Hide. It would be inappropriate for me to do it unilaterally. Woody (talk) 20:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• Tony's response: It's not appropriate to remove text from this page. The issue I raise centres on the nomination in question, and although I'm not opposing and the issue is not strictly speaking actionable, it's relevant to Criterion 2 (MOS, which recommends gender-neutral language without insisting) and the stated need at the top of the FA Criteria for a nomination to represent "our very best work" and "professional standards" of writing. Let me take these points by turn.

• Personal attacks: it's a bit rich to classify yourself after the fact as a male reader who is "driven by mid-20th-century orthodoxy" (they were my words), and then to accuse me of personally attacking you. At the same time, you and your collaborators have accused me of:
  • (1) "hypocrisy" (I disagree, and so would many others),
  • (2) having "chips on [my] shoulder" (in the eyes of the beholders, I say),
  • (3) making "far worse offensive remarks towards men" (sic) (what exactly is offensive is unclear to me—that men have genetalia, and that my remarks might have threatened a sense of manhood among some? That's hardly offensive, and if it's confrontational, I'm glad to have exposed the defensive frame of mind that propagates the generic female pronoun in this context—a frame that appears to reach hysterical proportions when challenged),
  • (4) vitriol (again, this is your own frenzied escalation: calm down and discuss the matter objectively),
  • (5) merely making a "point" (no, I'm encouraging you to change the language, and have complained before about the very same issue in a ship article here), and
  • (6) aligning myself with "only the most ardent of feminists" (laughable, and I presume that that's an implied insult to feminists, who probably shouldn't be vilified in this discussion, and that it's based on an assumption that only self-acclaimed feminists are in favour of removing sexist language from text).

As for this threat of taking me to this ArbCom thing, well if you wanted to waste everyone's time to that extent, I'd be doing my own accusing, I can assure you. It's that kind of hysterical reaction that does your case no good at all. Come to think of it, what is your case? That the female pronoun has no pernicious effect? That it's not to do with the male sense of power over women? Please keep the argument to the language of the nomination and, of course, its immediate relationship to gender and culture. It is you people who have personalised the issue with an attack on me. I will not shrink from a debate about the language. Tony (talk) 01:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure many female readers would be offended by Tony's repeadteduse of the term hysterical, as it has in its roots the subjugation of women by men, being derived from the same root term as hysterectomy. It's disappointing to see WP reinforcing this kind of indulgence. I do hope Wikipedians can get beyond the use of such degrading terms in the future. Thanks. - BillCJ (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• I've had alot of trouble with Concorde's pages use of "she/her" to refer to the plane, with appeals to proper grammar getting me nowhere. I guess my mistake was not ranting on about images of "winged phalluses"! - BillCJ (talk) 01:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:POINT...that is all. — BQZip01 — ^talk 06:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

No, its' not a POINT thing at all; read my comments above. Tony (talk) 13:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Using an FAC to rant about what our guidelines should be is indeed pointy. There were umpteen more appropriate places to raise this discussion. The Land (talk) 13:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Who's ranting about what the guidelines should be? Get your facts straight first, please, before you try to take pot-shots. Tony (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You, in this diff: [1]. The Land (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

PS. I'm not saying I disagree with you. Just that this is not the right place to have the debate. The Land (talk) 13:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Funny, in that diff, and nowhere else here, can I see where I ranted about what the guidelines should be. Nowhere. Go away and read it properly. I have no problem with the current guidelines; I'm merely putting the case for changing the language in this FAC. Is that some kind of crime or personal attack? Tony (talk) 15:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Since the only things which are actionable on this page relate to the FA criteria and/or the manual of style, it is not unreasonable to assume that by making such a heated statement here you are also concerned with the MOS. The Land (talk) 16:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

• Huh? I suggested a change in the language of the nominated article, which, as I've pointed out above, relates both to the lead requirements of the FA Criteria and to Criterion 2 (styleguides). This is a highly appropriate page if people here want to discuss my suggestion. There's nothing pointy about what I've said: it's entirely functional, now. Tony (talk) 01:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

But the article follows the style of many other featured articles on battleships (also written by TomStar81 (talk · contribs)): USS New Jersey (BB-62), USS Missouri (BB-63), USS Wisconsin (BB-64), USS Kentucky (BB-66), Iowa class battleship, and Armament of the Iowa class battleship. There has not been a consensus to change the nomenclature up to this point, and to my knowledge this has been suggested multiple times without success. -MBK₀₀₄ 01:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this a template for freezing the language, freezing the style and content of WP, forever? It's certainly worth mentioning that ships as females is a wider issue, involving more than this article on a single ship, and it might weigh on our minds. But I want to turn that on its head to say that those articles, in turn, might be revisited to update this aspect of their grammar. Such a move would be particularly timely given the 31–4 vote at MOS a few months ago that led to the first-ever recommendation in WP to use gender-neutral language. As I said above, no one can force this: MOS recommends without insisting. It's my job to persuade you of the broad benefit of avoiding this gender association, as traditional and long-lived as it might have been. That is why I've put my argument robustly; indeed, that is why I've confronted you with what I see as the linguistic and cultural reality of the usage. Tony (talk) 02:00, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I realize that this is a wider issue. But what you propose is not actionable off of an FAC alone. It needs to be proposed at both WP:SHIPS and WP:MARITIME and have a centralized discussion point to be able to change the specialized MoS from WP:MILHIST which has been integrated (as of November 2007) into the WP:MOS. -MBK₀₀₄ 02:21, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Because I am quite fed up of dealing with this issue I have made a move to resolve it once and for all. I have proposed amending the MILHIST MoS to address this issue. You're all welcome to point your two cents in over there. TomStar81 (Talk) 02:57, 7 January 2008 (UTC)