Alec Fischer

Welcome!

Hello, Alec Fischer! Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by clicking or using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your username and the date. Finally, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement. Happy editing! Closedmouth (talk) 04:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC) Getting started A tutorial • Our five pillars • Getting mentored How to: edit a page • upload and use images Intuitive guide to Wikipedia Getting help Frequently asked questions • Tips Where to ask questions or make comments Request administrator attention Policies and guidelines Neutral point of view • No original research Verifiability • Reliable sources • Citing sources What Wikipedia is not • Biographies of living persons Manual of Style • Three-revert rule • Sock puppetry Copyrights • Policy for non-free content • Image use policy External links • Spam • Vandalism Deletion policy • Conflict of interest • Notability The community Build consensus • Resolve disputes Assume good faith • Civility • Etiquette No personal attacks • No legal threats Community portal • Village pump Signpost • IRC channels • Mailing lists Writing articles Be bold in editing • Develop an article The perfect article • Manual of style Stubs • Categories • Disambiguation Pages needing attention • Peer review Miscellaneous User name • User pages • Talk pages Clean up: General • Spam • Vandalism Join a WikiProject • Translation Useful templates • Tools • User scripts

Christine Boutin

The article's Talk page is the best place to discuss issues in bios of living persons. Adding a category and citing it in the edit summary doesn't work for a bio article, see WP:LIVE for guidelines. Thanks, Chuckiesdad/Talk/Contribs 05:43, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Homophobia

Your edit to Christine Boutin has been reverted by another editor (see his valid reason in the edit summary). If you have a reliable source to indicate she is homophobic and could connect that to here political views, by all means write so in the article and then add the Category:Homophobia back in. No problem. Debresser (talk) 11:25, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Likewise your edit to Carl Værnet. The reverting editor's reason is more or less the same as mine. Apart from that, are you sure Dictionary of Homophobia is a reliable source on this subject? Debresser (talk) 11:29, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Could you explain to me why you think that book is not a reliable source? Alec Fischer (talk) 18:22, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't say it wasn't. I just have a little doubt, that's all. It might just be possible that the book was compiled by people who aren't completely neutral on the subject of homophobia - I mean people who might themselves be potential (ot even actual) victims of homophobia, and a book of their hand might include certain biases. Debresser (talk) 19:08, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I read the editorial reviews at http://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Homophobia-History-Lesbian-Experience/dp/1551522292/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1242591127&sr=11-1 and the book sounds entirely legitimate. I think this is a notable reference to Vaernet as a homophobe, so wouldn't you agree that the category applies? Alec Fischer (talk) 20:23, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The reviews are very positive. Tin is gay. This means that, as I said before even knowing that, his book might be biased. Personally, I don't think it is though.

My point, which was also raised by the other editor, has nothing to do with the reliability of the source, but with an absence of statements about Vaernet's homophobia as such. In http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/54741.html, which you brought as a source, it says: "Dr. Carl Vaernet's criminal experimentations at the Buchenwald concentration camp, in which he tried to cure homosexuals by injecting synthetic hormones into their groins, were also encouraged by Himmler." Nowhere does it imply even that Vaernet was a homophobe. Perhaps he was just a physician trying to make a living by utilizing the political climate? Or perhaps the subject interested him from a medical, scientific point of view? We need clear, unambiguous sources. Hope you understand my point. Debresser (talk) 21:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Would you object if I categorized a Buchenwald concentration camp doctor as an antisemite on the basis that he experimented on Jews? Would it matter if he were listed in the Dictionary of Antisemitism, as being encouraged by Himmler? Alec Fischer (talk) 21:06, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a non-argument and a train of thought better left sooner than later. Please, don't get emotional about it. Debresser (talk) 21:09, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm simply trying to understand what you consider sufficient evidence, and your lack of an answer hasn't really helped very much. To be quite frank, I find it very odd that a deeply religous Jew is trying so hard to defend the motives of, literally, a Nazi death camp doctor. Ideally, we would spend no effort discussing whether we think someone is a homophobe, and simply accept that a reliable source lists him as notably homophobic. Instead, you show a relucatance to accept the authority of this book, and I cannot understand the source of your relucatance. I would appreciate it if, rather than accusing me of getting emotional, as if being emotional about the Holocaust were a bad thing, you would simply explain. Why do you object to calling him what he was? Alec Fischer (talk) 21:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I really don't believe this source brings any prove he was homophobic. Apart from that there is another point. Wich has also been mentioned before. The article doesn't focuse on him being homophobic. It dwells more on his political and medical career (indeed with the Nazis, unfortunately). We should not add a category unless it has some importance, which in this case it does not seem to have. Me being a religious Jew, and even the fact that most of my family perished in the Nazi concentration camps, do not have to do with it at all. Debresser (talk) 21:41, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

We don't need to prove that he was homophobic, nor does it matter. All that matters is that, regardless of what either of us might think, a reliable source recognizes him as notable in the history of homophobia, whether or not he was personally homophobic. The fact that the article is also in the "LGBT History of Germany" and "Persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust" categories confirms that this one is important.

Here are some other links that support this:

http://www.lsvd.de/gedenk-ort/hin-indep120601.htm

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dko12530/concentrationcamp.htm

http://www.petertatchell.net/international/vaernet.htm

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dko12530/hunt_for_danish_kz.htm

http://andrejkoymasky.com/mem/holocaust/05/ho05e.html

http://www.devoiretmemoire.org/actualites/sorties/extrait_site_auschwitz_2.html

I've tried very, very hard to understand where you're coming from and to avoid the disparaging conclusion. I've also explained myself and supported my own conclusions. At this point, I can only suggest that we agree to disagree and request that you join me in a consensus edit to restore this category. Alec Fischer (talk) 22:42, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Let's go back to the left margin. :)

Please do not try to understand where I'm coming from. Stay uninvolved, please.

This article calls him "a coldhearted doctor". Which shows he had no personal agenda with homosexuals. This article says that "Vaernet had a pet theory for which he required gay guinea pigs.", so again no personal agenda.

The other point also remains in force. And since User:Chuckiesdad agrees with me I see no consensus here. Homophobia just is not anywhere a subject in the article, and therefore we can not add it as a category. Debresser (talk) 23:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)