Talk:Melissa Farley

Removed section per WP:SYN

I removed the most recent edit by User:Catherinebrown:

Her assertion that the experience of male prostitutes is no different from female prostitutes is highly contentious and not supported by many other studies which indicate that male workers, experience much less violence and exploitation and exercise greater control over working conditions than female and transgender workers (Aggleton, 1999; Valera, Sawyer, & Schiraldi, 2001; Weinberg, Shaver, & Williams, 1999; West 1993).

None of these citations are listed anywhere among the references, so its hard to tell where they are from, but I'm pretty sure none of these are specific critiques of Melissa Farley's assertions or research. Hence, even though the above clearly cites several sources for the statement, it is being applied here in a novel way, in violation of Wikipedia's rules about original synthesis, a subset of original research.

Now if this research is being used by a verifiable, citable source (according to Wikipedia's rules) to specifically contest Farley's assertions, then by all means, that belongs here, specifically citing that source as the primary one. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 04:09, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. References need to state what they refer to, especially if they support a claim that is contentious. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 03:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed POV and "Factual accuracy" tags

I have removed the "POV" and "factual accuracy" tags for this article. The content of this article has not been in dispute for 6 months now, and an RfC and an NPOV noticeboard notice have been run to ask if anybody has any remaining objections to the article. Since there haven't been any objections (other than a call for more biographical content), and, I think, balanced and accurately reflecting published sources, I'm removing these dispute tags.

I will vet this article further at the WP:BLP noticeboard shortly. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

--Obviously this article is still in dispute and has POV problems. The author, iamcuriousblue, is completely biased against the subject. This article has been under dispute for years now and will remain so as long as no other persons are allowed to edit the article except Mr. iamcuriousblue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.249.50 (talk) 08:02, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Sigh. Would you care to offer specifics on what constitutes "bias" in this article, other than the above ad-hominum argument? If its your assertion that "unbiased" represents the rabidly pro-Farley POV pushed last year by User:Axiomatica, then I dispute your claim of bias. Nonetheless I will keep the tag in place for up to several months, until hopefully other editors become involved and a truly consensus version emerges. Other editors are certainly "allowed" to edit this article, but so am I. I have and will continue to actively remove edits that violate Wikipedia's rules concerning NPOV and original research, whether pro- or anti-Melissa Farley. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 11:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed tags again. Please add a section to the Talk page here describing at least some particulars (there may be general tone problems as well, but a few specifics, please) before putting them back. She is certainly controversial, so POV problems are plausible, but we need a more specific indication of what's disputed. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 16:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Presumably, this finally represents the termination of this long, ugly dispute: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Axiomatica/Archive. – Iamcuriousblue (talk) 05:58, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Expand template

I know it's not very polite, but I've gone ahead and removed the Expand template since the article seems to be pretty well fleshed out. Feel free to re-add the template, but please discuss the reasoning here. 98.71.197.85 (talk) 16:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

That tag has been there for a while, and the section on health research is the only glaring omission. (I've been collecting Farley's papers and abstracts on the subject recently, so hopefully I'll get a chance to fill this in soon.) Like any article, there are probably several important areas that could be covered in more depth, but nothing glaring. So your move of the tag from the article header to one section was appropriate. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 16:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

"johns"

I suggest that the first use of the term "johns" be quoted. Despite its common use it remains a slang term. --96.233.84.118 (talk) 10:23, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting point, but I believe most academic articles about the subject use the term "john" without quotes. Or the more neutral/academic, "men who buy sex", though there's a conflict here (as there is in several places, eg, "prostituted woman") between Farley's usage of terminology and usage in academic sociology more generally. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 05:06, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Category:Criminals

I just want to note that the repeated adding of Category:Criminals to this article is a blatant violation of WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. I will also note that User:RyanRetroWickawack's edit summary statement "She is a criminal, so I added the category tag. Any attempted chages will be reverted" is a pretty blatant violation of WP:CIVIL, not to mention provocative and not one that could be excused as an unfortunate statement made in the heat of an argument.

This edit, of course, is a serious over-application of this category, which is one that is to be used *cautiously* for biographies of career criminals (though in most cases, a more specific subcategory would be used). If this category were to actually be used for anybody who has been convicted in court of a crime, everybody from Robert Downey, Jr. to Martin Luther King, Jr. would be placed in the "criminal" category. Obviously, this isn't done in those or other biographies and should not be done here.

I do want to caution against going in the opposite direction, namely, removal of the statement "Farley was arrested 13 different times in 9 different states for these actions." The inclusion of this information, though clearly supported with citations from several news sources and a book chapter by Farley herself, was a repeated point of contention and edit warring by a now-banned editor who was a rabid supporter of Farley. I caution against this, because I have been noticing an overzealous trend on what has been broadly called "BLP culture" to blindly purge all contentious or negative statements out any BLP article, to the point of moving away from NPOV toward "Sympathetic Point of View". Iamcuriousblue (talk) 05:02, 23 February 2010 (UTC)