It's all very 1984-esque; I'm seeing shades of "We were never/always at war with Oceania/Eurasia".
This is revisionist history, and the scrubbing of previously correct but now incorrect "history" should be viewed with suspicion.
-----------------------------------------------------
The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth.
This is a hilarious take.
There's little things less “1984-esque” than a small self-structured collective organization enforcing the preference of an individual on how they should be named.
It's the opposite of “a dictatorship imposing its views on individuals through propaganda”, it's a collective of people helping an individual, dead for not being as society wanted them to be, have their personal wish fulfilled even after death. People who want to dead name the victim, are the one who want to erase the individual to make it fit the mold of society, they are the totalitarian hivemind, they are the Tom Parsons of our reality.
Orwell being a lifelong anarchist socialist, there's very little doubt on which side he'd be in that debate.
In the case of this person, they were not notable under their birth name. Unfortunately, their transgender status is the whole reason they’re notable, and the article clearly states that they are. I don’t need that person’s old name to understand the situation.
More info is usually better than less info, if you personally don't need to know something, that does not mean that that info should be removed.
If I'm proud of my name, you should include it. If I'm ashamed of my name, you should omit it, unless it's important context or information. You have to have a clear articulable reason above, it's a real detail.
This is strictly untrue for an Encyclopedia, which seeks to present only a summation of relevant and highly notable information about a person, making it far different than e.g. a biography.
None of them changed their name on purpose nor rejected it, the comparison is moot.
I feel as if you're trying to inject a political motivation about the decision to omit that detail when a simpler one is better. If something of little note is offensive to the person you're talking about, it's disrespectful to them as a person, to their humanity, to mention it.
E.g. You would only mention someone was born, to parents who were avid members of the KKK, if and only if, their life story related in some way.
Otherwise you're trying to introduce some preexisting bias that doesn't belong. In this example, if this person left their community to fight racism. The information about the set of likes reasons they got involved, are worth the bias of introducing the assumptions you're reasonably allowed to make about their parents.
If they find that religion offensive, and spent their life exclusively on epidemiology, it's wrong to include that detail, true or not.
Then, do consider the "political" aspect, that has led to the deadname policy that Wikipedia has. Many people, who for their own cultural reasons, want to disrespect someone, will refuse to address or refer to some individual the way they want to be. That behavior is no different from calling some one fuckface, and refusing to address them differently. You've selected something they find offensive, in order to bully and harass them, needlessly. Given that toxic reality, for cases like this, it's better to defer to not mentioning the name they were given at birth, because that detail might be used against them. Again, there might be some stronger reason you would want to include it. But it's better to err on the side of respecting the individual.
The secind option used to be the norm on wikipedia even 15 years ago, but Anti-trans activists using dead-naming as a slur against trans people triggered the shift from the second option to the first.
As usual assholes are why we can't have nice things.
Just to clarify, I think you mistook the order of the first option and the second option? I was confused by this statement
Writing someone was called XYZ, is not calling the person by that name again. It is just stating a historic fact.
For a transgender person, I may have known them before they transitioned for example and may not necessarily be familiar with their new name, that's a reason off the top of my head that it would be relevant to me but not necessarily you.
Then reading Wikipedia probably isn't a great idea.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't any presentation of information prepared by humans, information wherein someone else decided which facts were relevant? The only way around this I can think of is personal performance of all experimentation in human history from first principles. Unfortunately you will probably need to learn those first principles through reading things written by other humans.
I couldn't agree more, it's wrong to decide what facts someone else is allowed to know. Please tell me the most embarrassing details of your life?
Perhaps there's nuance and different standards we can apply when talking about individuals, especially individuals who have been bullied or abused? Than the standards we apply when a powerful group is trying to cover up a violent attack against another?
> For a transgender person, I may have known them before they transitioned for example and may not necessarily be familiar with their new name, that's a reason off the top of my head that it would be relevant to me but not necessarily you.
I have a very hard time understanding this example, you're concerned that you, who knew this person but only knew their older name, won't be able to find thier wikipedia page via searching for their old name? Which is true because their old name isn't listed on the page itself?
I don't find that very compelling, did you mean something different?
Then don't read an encyclopedia, because the entire raison d'être of that medium is about distilling “broadly useful” facts about the world, with no pretense of exhaustiveness.
Its really not very different from a Wikipedia article using an author's pseudonym mentioning their real name.
Should all Wikipedia articles on people omit information that the subject of the article does not want mentioned? Even if they find it distressing?
Wikipedia isn't a database of private information on individuals. On most celebrities pages you won't find their infidelities record either, unless it has some historical relevance.
> Its really not very different from a Wikipedia article using an author's pseudonym mentioning their real name.
In fact, when an author made it publicly clear that they didn't want their real name be known, Wikipedia usually respect their choice (until their real name stops being private information and gets historical relevance).
And somehow anti-trans activists seem to care much less. How surprising, really.
No it doesn't. Googling or searching on Wikipedia for either name yields the same page.
Calling somebody with his former name and mentioning his former name in a Wikipedia page are two completely different things. Using the fact that the former is seen as rude by some to avoid the second is in my opinion just an example of the level of extremism of the pro-trans activists.
But if in fact it made sense, shouldn't we completely remove any reference of the previous name also from the pages of people like Yusuf Islam [1] or Muhammad Ali [2] ?
The victim of a crime was not notable before their name change.
Many of these women are not really known under those names, but somehow, they're still listed on their wiki pages.
Same for stage names, people don't use stage name because they want to escape their former name, they use stage names because it's cool.
And when people use a pseudonym and want to keep their real identity secret for personal reasons, their name doesn't appear on Wikipedia, and nobody is ever complaining about that! It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular…
> It's as if people were obsessed by trans people in particular…
Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia, especially if we're talking about peoples legal names, except if the person was trans for some reason. Wikipedia is the one making exceptions here for one group in particular.
Nope. When it's an unknown transgender person who died for being themselves, perhaps it's stupid to put the older name there. World renown Ellen Page is deadnamed right there at the top. Because they were known for decades worldwide under that name.
Melanija Knavs was not known under that name, and it's still there.
No.
The goal of an encyclopedia is to have a high signal/noise ratio. If you put literally everything on a subject on its page there, it becomes fundamentally useless.
And in that particular case, the only people you satisfy by putting the info there, are the bullies who caused their suicide.
Most pseudonyms aren't real secrets either, plenty of people knew the real name or face of people posting under a pseudonym but that doesn't make it OK to post it on Wikipedia.
> Yet, they keep every other name on wikipedia, especially if we're talking about peoples legal names
Ah yes, “every other” except for the ones they don't. We've already talked about people with pseudonyms right here!
> Wikipedia is the one making exceptions here for one group in particular.
One group that happened to be harassed (and, unfortunately often, assaulted) for having changed their name in the first place, hence the “exception”: the group is exceptionally vulnerable.
What on earth are you talking about?
Except when people keep vandalizing Wikipedia renaming people there with their dead name. And yes it happens over and over and over again.
Because the most active extremists on the topic are by far the anti-trans crowd. (And it's not even close, there are trans people assaulted every week, sometimes going as far as murder this is extremism).
And again, Wikipedia keeps mentioning the former name when it's necessary (look for Bradley Manning on Wikipedia, the page redirects to Chelsea Manning but the old name is state because it's important).
It's incredible that in a discussion about brutal violence against a child, the child victim is being painted as the "extremist"!
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biog...
Strong “Don't contradict my opinions with facts” vibe.
And then you have to ponder the relevance with whether or not publishing may cause harm.
Let's take an example, unrelated to the topic: why aren't the addresses of stars, or the identification number of billionaires personal jets, listed on Wikipedia? Because it's not relevant, and can be harmful.
And it's the same thing for trans people's name. Most of the time, their birth name is irrelevant and can even be harmful. But sometimes, when it's important, the name will still be there, with the redirection and all, see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Manning
And, by the way, this isn't a Wikipedia thing, this is how press right works! Newspapers get sued all the time for mentioning irrelevant personal information about people, and lose.
Any information which is relevant to the subject of article and brings clarity should not be censored, ideally.
Also if you could understand what I'm saying, you would realise I'm not asking to put birth names of every trans person with a wikipedia article in their article. Because it's not relevant.
You keep mentioning "harm" but never exactly describe what harm? What more harm can you imagine for a person who committed suicide due to bullying?
Because they weren't behaving as their surrounding wanted them to. The reason was given in the article. You don't need to know the birth certificate name of that kid to talk about that.
In fact, the very people asking the most loudly for using this name are the crowd that bullied them alive.
In your earlier reply you said relevancy of something was subjective. No. Inference of facts from given information by each person may be subjective. But the information itself, must never be influenced by the subjectivity stemming from the information provider.
I get that revealing some information which maybe considered sensitive will be used by awful people. But that doesn't apply here. You cannot withhold information on the pretense that it will be used maliciously. Otherwise it's no different that dystopian stories of catching criminals before they commit crime.
This comparison is so lazy it convinced me to step out of this discussion.
Good day.
The Wikipedia article skims over this, instead focusing on the trans and bullying aspects. This will have been a deliberate editorial choice as well.
Instead, like everything else, it's another opinionated aggregator of information.