Talk:Beira's Place/Archives/2024/April

Inclusion of opinions of non-notable people

@DanielRigal, you have reverted a change with rationale If it was in the Independent (which is RS) then the writer probably does not need to be individually notable. The source in question is an opinion piece[1]. The author is not notable, as evidenced by them not having a Wikipedia article. It is undue to include the opinions of non-notable people, even if those opinions can be verified through being published in a reliable source. To do otherwise would be to open the floodgates to including every opinion that can be reliably sourced. Would you think it a good idea to include this one?: [2] Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:25, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

The article soft pedals the criticism of this highly controversial organisation to the point that it is close to needing a POV tag on it. It gives quite a lot of coverage to support from organisations which are little more than Twitter accounts (albeit notable Twitter accounts with articles). I'm not going to argue to exclude those but we do need to include coverage of the other side of this too.

If you will permit me a short digression here... An example of how one-sided this article is can be seen where the article says "The organization uses the definition of woman as a 'female of any age' from the Equality Act 2010, and does not serve transgender women." which is taking a literally nonsensical claim at face value and republishing it in wikivoice. We can report that they claim that this is based in wording of the Equality Act but, so far as I am aware, every single time this interpretation of the law has been brought up court it has been rejected. If they have a legal right to exclude trans women (which they quite possibly do) it would be based in the "reasonable exceptions" clause of the EA, not its definition of women. We do not need to comment that they are misrepresenting the law, unless there is RS coverage of people pointing this out, but we certainly should not be misrepresenting it on their behalf. Sorry, that digression turned out longer than I intended, lets back on topic.

We need to cover the controversies, not sweep them under the carpet. We need to do so proportionally, not in a way that favours the other side either.

We need to include coverage of the notable criticism as well. Note that I said notable criticism not notable critics. If we are going to include supportive comments from very minor organisations, some of which are little more than Twitter accounts, then we should balance that with critical comments published in Reliable Sources. The opinion piece in the Independent seems like a plausible source to use for soucing an opinion. Yes, it is opinion, as are all the supportive comments. Maybe it's not ideal but it does not seem any worse than some of the supportive comments in the article. So long as we don't misrepresent it as more than it is, I think it is worth retaining.

So, is this particular comment a hill I am prepared to die on? Not really. The hill worth defending is NPOV in general, which means neutral coverage of the controversy. If we can find better sources for that then maybe this comment can be replaced with those. I think it should be retained in the meantime though, mostly because there is so little coverage of the other side of the controversy here that, without it, a reader unfamiliar with the subject would have very little idea that there even was a controversy at all. I'd be interested to hear other people's views, particularly if they have suggestions for a better replacement for this content which might keep everybody happy. --DanielRigal (talk) 11:26, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

If there is criticism coming from notable people and organizations, let's include it. But I could only find blog/twitter type commentary from people whose opinions carry no more weight than yours or mine. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Ryan Coogan's opinion needs to go. I we allow this to stay we may as well cast about for opinion for people on the bus. If nothing else this is WP:Coat

There are many articles like THIS (also from they Independent) out there. I wouldn't suggest we include them.

The PM is a far more notable person and has backed Rowling but we wouldn't include this ARTICLE (would we?). It's very relevant but doesn't mention Beira's Place directly.

We have to take care with what we plaster our articles with. Coogan adds nothing.

So I'd like to remove. Please explain any strong objections.

Thanks. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:45, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll be removing Coogan's view shortly if no response as above.

I think we should also have a 'Reactions' section and move some bits to there. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Didn't get to this before it was removed, but I've reverted because I agree with DanielRigal above. The article currently has POV issues and this opinion piece goes some way to balancing it. Loki (talk) 03:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I would have appreciated a conversation here before your revert - as I requested above. I won't start an edit war but don't you agree that engagement before reverting would be more constructive.

I'd say fixing the POV issues would be the way to go rather than adding more.

THIS would be an example of something we may chose to include if the lack balance is our concern.

I note also that you have removed the reference to the equalities act - for which thanks. That needs to be rewritten I think and this from Pink News may be of use here.

Under the Equality Act 2010, transgender people are protected from discrimination, but services are able to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces if this exclusion is a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 08:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)