So, Bri, in his capacity as Editor-In-Chief of the SignPost, is the person whose acceptance of the transphobic "Stanton McCandlish now wants to be known as It" essay has caused much controversy.
His first reaction was to point to his status as interim/temporary EiC, as if somehow that makes him less culpable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =885669133Well no, his first reaction, before it had even been published, was this...
I found it hilarious. Also am impressed that a Bing search for the desperate loneliness of the "royal we" takes you to the draft-in-progress. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
And despite being aware this could cause a controversy, he was quite enthusiastic in his decision to publish.....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =885297363(unlike some reader(s) even pre-publication, I can't find anything to criticize here. game on!)
The game was indeed on, but it seemed Bri rapidly lost his appetite to play. As criticism poured in to the newsroom, he said this......
Can this be continued in the reader comments please? This whole page is about to be archived. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:48, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
....while funnily enough not choosing to register a comment.
When the piece was inevitably put up for deletion, he changed his mind and stepped into the frey. His response was tone deaf in the extreme, showing more of a will to pour petrol on a fire than soothe troubled waters....
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =885606671He even trotted out the attempted defence that you're not forced to read it, even though the whole point of the SignPost is to bring you things you want to read. He seemed to think there was some trigger warning included for those prone to offence, so they could have chosen not to click it.
Well, no, since.....
HUMOUR
Pesky Pronouns
.....gave absolutely no indication of possible offence.
A second comment saw him merely try to argue the criticism had been canvassed, i.e. he wasn't getting a fair shake from the whole readership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... =885619363His words would come back to haunt him.
Having by now realised the magnitude of his screwup, he posted this as a holding position, on his user page.....
First of all I embrace Wikipedia's core principles of inclusiveness and community. If something I have done has caused real concerns of safety to an individual or community, that has not been my intention. My work at The Signpost and elsewhere has always been in the spirit of improving the community and giving more opportunities for it to have a voice, not fewer.
Second, only those who know me personally know this, and even some of them do not, but I have close friends and family members who are members of the community referred to above. I am myself a member of multiple non-visible minorities. So I think I have a clue about how this can affect people.
I may have more to say about this later after more thought.
Sincerely
Bri
March 1, 2019
As crap as that is, it seemed to indicate a sincere reflection was finally to be forthcoming. It was sort of a middle ground between the position of the author (SCREW YOU ALL) and the responsible sub-editor (sincere apology and resignation).
As time went on, as Bri kept his counsel, it became rather obvious what the actual reason was for his delay. He was waiting for the outcome of the deletion.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't go his way......
The result of the discussion was: Keep and Blank . This was a lengthy discussion with input from many editors. At least half of the editors would like the page to be deleted, while a substantial fraction prefer to keep it. In the middle there are those who would keep the page blanked as it is now. What is clear is that the humor page was not very funny, and it offended many editors. This was not an appropriate page for the Signpost, because the page generated bad will between editors. Moreover, some topics are not appropriate for humor in the context of a professional work environment, even an online one. The issue of how to deal with pronouns on Wikipedia could be discussed seriously and thoughtfully. This page did not do that. Jehochman Talk 15:20, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Indeed he must have got a tip-off, because he finally chose to comment half an hour before it came in......
Some things I want to point out as the acting Editor-in-Chief of Signpost for the issue in which the controversial material appeared.
The Signpost has attempted to provide an open-door policy, editing contributions as little as possible. Especially so without an actual Editor-in-Chief supported by a community process of election/appointment.
The image captions were added by me, so they should not reflect on the editors of the piece. Unless you want to pin them for not removing the captions in the hours before publication. And BTW this link was meant to be a reference to some kind of quantum indeterminate "trans-biological" state that pertains to beings such as the essay's hypothetical author. There was no intention to associate transgender status and suicide or to even promote it, as some have suggested.
If an Arbcom decision decides The Signpost and other Wikipedia-space content is subject to scrutiny for humor that impinges on people's feelings, then you will have to take a hard look at other things as well, starting with WP:TOP25 which regularly lampoons the US presidency, and conservatives in general, and the entire nation (Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-01-31/Traffic_report #15, "from sea to poisoned sea" strikes me as bad taste and offensive but I promise not to bring a new Arbcom case over it).
I predict that this whole episode will end up having had a profound chilling effect on discourse on-Wiki, especially that which pushes against the politically correct tide. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:51, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm not going to re-litigate the process of selecting and publishing articles here. If it goes to an evidence phase I guess we can get into that. Just one example of recent controversial events covered in The Signpost: News and notes from the January 31 issue covered WMF personnel changes and Venezuelan Internet censorship. We were harshly criticized in reader feedback for the entire thing. In another issue, selection of images for the gallery was perceived as nationalistic and criticized. An adverse decision here could effectively eliminate coverage of even slightly controversial topics in The Signpost even when many people argue that there is a critical need for awareness and debate in this community.
Honestly I expected negativity around – and even contemplated the possibility of retaliation for – our publication of adverse material on the Acting U.S. Attorney General (which never came), but the scope and venom around the reaction to this humor piece has taken me aback.
An observation and a question to Arbcom: criticisms of The Signpost run the gamut from the trivial (image galleries) to the substantial (gender pronouns). Are we to avoid all topics henceforth that generate criticism? Are we to self-censor? Are we going to try to rewrite our contributors' content to match our own predetermined ideas of "truth" or, worse, follow a "truth guide"? Will Arbcom provide that? ☆ Bri (talk) 15:49, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
Suffice to say, whoever Bri's trans friends and family are, they probably think he's a clueless fuck.
The reason for his lack of contrition, instead merely doubling down and worse, seems to be that he had already decided to resign. Posting just an hour later, he informed people he was leaving post, while still offering no apology, just more excuses.....
February issue aftermath
I'd like to say thanks for the opportunity to lead this team but now I think it's time to turn over the reins and de-list myself as acting Editor-in-Chief. Part of the problem for the last issue was sheer lack of time to comprehensively consider the items I'd already written up as pre-publication checks. I suggest the team update the checklist with consideration to the recent MfD and community feedback; my own opinions on freedom of action here may be extreme.
Hope that someone here has the courage/interest/wherewithal to write up the aftermath of the February issue. For the record the final outcome of the MfD was to blank but not to delete the offending column. Voting was heavy, coming close to making the top-ranked deletion debates. Vote count:
Delete 45
Keep 28
Comment 5
Blank 2
Retract 1
Neutral 1
Replace 1
I'm available by email if you want to discuss offline. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:54, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
....but I guess if you look closely there is the tiniest evidence of reflection, and perhaps at least an admission that the feedback is wholly representative of his intended readership.
And that and was that. As we look back at the last few months, I think we can all agree Bri was true to his word, since it seems like every single issue he oversaw, generated controversy of some kind.
