Wikipedia talk:Xe

"Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought"

...and accordingly, shouldn't be advocating revisions to the English language, whether in articles, or on talk pages. Not only is this advocacy, and as such contrary to the established objectives of the project, but it is liable to place yet another barrier between existing contributors and potential newcomers. We use far too much jargon etc as it is, and adding more is going to nothing whatsoever to increase accessibility. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm not requesting that Xe be undeleted based on original research. This is no more original research than any of the numerous policy proposals we hear every day, and indeed less so, since it is merely a suggestion that we could explore the idea of gender-neutral language for our own (quite valid) purposes. Wnt (talk) 20:14, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Wnt, I am fascinated by and support your idea and would be happy to help out in any way I can. I thought you might be interested in a snip of text from a recent discussion that I thought might potentially interest you:

<TZsnip START>

Some of us support the "Xe" conceptual experiment, and hope any “radical” idea for potentially affecting change will be given consideration based on group consensus/awareness, logic and empirical determined results, and that policy should be built upon fact, not fiction.

Some of us dare to ask questions,

Some of us dare to test new ideas,

Some of us dare to take their reach to Wikipedia, to try new approaches to fixing our problems,

Some of us dream of a new Wikipedia,

Some of us want to try new ideas,

Some of us want to experiment with language,

Some of us want to stop the hostility,

Some of us want to stop war,

Some of us are close minded,

Some of us just want to keep our friends together, not lose them to a mob of angry witch burning mob,

Some of us are open minded and want change, want solutions to our problems.

Some of us are genuinely worried about hostility on Wikipedia,

Some of us have noticed some of us being very uncivil,

Some of us have noticed some of us being very uncivil VERY often,

Some of us have reviewed edit summaries can found SHOCKING amounts of uncivil, aggressive, hostile behavior, stretching back over a shockingly large number of diffs,

Some of us think that this is original research and therefore against Wiki-regulations.

Some of us agree that this is “original research” and wonder why that is a problem? This isn’t an encyclopedia article, this is an experiment to try to improve the encyclopedia itself.

Some of us suggest some of us remember Pillar 5. Wikipedia’s rules can evolve. Brother, we can evolve. We need to.

Some of us only care about Wikipedia, Jimbo’s Wikipedia, Diderot’s Wikipedia, our Wikipedia.

Some of us glimpse the straw man’s reality shrink ever smaller.

Some of us see change coming.

Some of us are scared.

Some of us are not scared, feel so oppressed, so persecuted, actually underwent a virtual WP:EXECUTION (!!!) in this Wiki-reality that some of us have been forced back into the refuge of our own de-identified reality. A de-identified, peaceful, cloud of concepts, a world of Multimemes, a Nirvana of the mind.

Some of us are happy here and want to never leave.

Some of us want to dance with ideas, not fight with people.

Some of us suggest some of us consider dialing back the preachiness, as some of us KNOW where that path ends, and some of us suggest some of us focus on the task at hand.

Some of us will need to (some of us would suggest MORE OFTEN) need to breath deeply, and try to be less... grumpy. A just a touch more WP:Civil.

Some of us would like to remind some of us that Wikipedia is a place of learning and that every article is a portal for our friends and family to come join us and help us build the Wikipedia of tomorrow.

Some of us think comments like that are not helping our brother(s) know that we understand their fears, and will never let a restrictive “thought police” form on Wikipedia, we are the opposite of censorship.

Some of us would like to object to some of us being labeled “grumpy”, some of us have a short fuse for the stupidity we empirically observe in the world around us, on and off WIKI.

Some of us agree that this is an unfair characterization.

Some of us DO NOT agree that this is an unfair characterization.

There are strong opinions on both sides.

Some of us would like to remind some of us that we are here for Wikipedia, for everyone at Wikipedia, to support them, to help them, no matter how hard their life may have been, not matter how grumpy they may feel, we will never forget them, and should we meet them here, we would respect them as a brother or sister.

<TZsnip END> Jim-Siduri (talk) 07:03, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Jim-Siduri, if you don't stop disrupting Wikipedia with your endless cut-and-paste ill-informed vacuous platitudes, I am going to raise your behaviour at WP:ANI, and ask that you be blocked indefinitely as the clueless time-waster you clearly are. I suggest yo learn how Wikipedia actually works, make some useful contributions, and then when you have a chance to be taken seriously, feel free to maker specific concrete proposals for change. And cut out the endless repetitive "some of us" bollocks - you are speaking only for yourself (I have yet to see the slightest bit of evidence that anyone supports your waffle), and making false assertions that you are speaking for others does nothing whatsoever to enhance your credibility. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:28, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Really? "it is proposed that we create a new pronoun structure", " so long as these schemes remain out of widespread use, we should feel free to reinvent them, and especially, to invent them with an eye toward delivering additional desirable features"... That looks like invention to me. Or perhaps you could explain how it is possible to invent things without being original. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:24, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I was unclear. This proposal isn't meant to suggest using these terms in articles, only in our own conversations among ourselves. At least, not until it catches on and becomes a household word. :) Wnt (talk) 23:35, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

As I have already made clear, I don't think that inventing new language is appropriate for talk pages either, as it would act a a barrier between existing contributors and potential new contributors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

If the term is wikilinked to the relevant essay, it is not much of a barrier. Wikipedia is already pretty infamous for throwing alphabet soup wikilinks at the newbies, but at least this isn't under penalty of law. Wnt (talk) 03:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Having to read an essay in order to understand Wikipedia-specific gender-neutral language not used elsewhere looks like quite a barrier to me - and none of the alphabet soup is compulsory. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:12, 1 August 2014 (UTC)