This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Conversion therapy article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
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Conversion therapy was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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"pray away the gay"
Someone is trying to insert a mention of the fact that conversion therapy is "derided by critics as pray away the gay" in the lead. I'm going to keep on removing that, because Wikipedia is meant to be a serious encyclopedia and not a dumping ground for every random trivial fact that might interest someone. There is quite enough scientific criticism of conversion therapy in the lead - there's no need for silly, vulgar, and totally unscientific criticisms of it. Hebradaeum (talk)
It is absolutely NOT trivia. In fact, it is arguably the most common term for this practice. I suspect that a large number of our readers know this as "pray away the gay" and don't actually known that they call it conversion therapy - the reason is because the term conversion therapy says absolutely nothing about what it actually tries to do, so the descriptive (even if insulting) term is better known. When I was trying to find this article, I actually search for "pray the gay away", and was stuck with a article on a TV episode that has the title (which, by the way, is about conversion therapy). Very common terms like this belong in the lede - it is in no way "trivia".
Wikipedia isn't supposed to base article content on Google searches. The fact is that "pray away the gay" is not a scientific term, and it doesn't belong in a serious article (oh, and ABCNews is not a scientific source). This is not the "Conversion therapy in popular culture" article. Hebradaeum (talk) 02:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree. The TV episode was named after the idea that one could pray away the gay, an euphemism for Conversion therapy. Pray away the gay is correctly aimed at this article not the TV episode named after the euphemism. Insomesia (talk) 03:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How would you know what the TV episode was named after, or that those who named it believed "pray away the gay" meant the same thing as conversion therapy? Even if it were true that the Pray away the gay TV episode was named after what its producers believed was a term for conversion therapy, that still wouldn't be a good reason for redirecting "pray away the gay" here. Common sense suggests that people searching for "pray away the gay" will be looking for the TV episode. I don't see any evidence to the contrary at all. Hebradaeum (talk) 22:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't. But it's reasonable for an article in what claims to be a serious encyclopedia to focus on the scientific criticisms of conversion therapy, and not on the way conversion therapy has been ridiculed in popular culture. Giving the popular culture stuff equally status with scientific criticism does rather imply that scientific criticism isn't really needed, which is an unfortunate kind of message. Hebradaeum (talk) 05:47, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
Why did an editor change "aims" to "purports" in the lead? The American Psychological Association says "aims", and that term does not mean the same thing as "purports". Hebradaeum (talk) 23:09, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Purport
About this, I did change one of the "purport" instances to "claim", but not the same one that was previously changed. That was my mistake. As it stands right now, with both changed, it's the way it ought to be. I'm StillStanding (24/7) (talk) 23:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
The Request for Comment here is simple: Should the term "Pray the gay away" be listed as an alternate name for this therapy in the article - and if so, should it be boldfaced in the first sentence? The term is used a lot, arguably more than the official conversion therapy name, but other editors have objected to it for being slangy and pejorative. Ego White Tray (talk) 21:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Weak include - This is definitely a tricky issue. And policy does not give much guidance. I was able to find this bit: WP:POVNAMING. This is what I found most relevant, "If a name is widely used in reliable sources (particularly those written in English), and is therefore likely to be well recognized by readers, it may be used even though some may regard it as biased." And then this part, "Instead, alternative names should be given 'due prominence within the article itself, and redirects created as appropriate." So the real question is what do the reliable sources say and how prominent is each among them? For the record, Google searches do get used in debates about article content, especially with regards to redirects and disambig pages. Though to be fair, they can be unreliable. So here's my preliminary research:
Regarding the redirect
Google search of "pray the gay away" "our america" produces 71,500 results.
Google search of "pray the gay away" "conversion therapy" produces 255,000 results.
This seems clear to me that the redirect Pray the gay away should point here.
Regarding the article lead
Google search of "conversion therapy" homosexuality produces 307,000 results.
Google search of "pray the gay away" homosexuality produces 1,040,000 results.
Google search of "reparative therapy" homosexuality produces 236,000 results.
This indicates to me that the most used name for this practice is "pray the gay away".
One could argue that the article name itself should be changed based on these results, but keeping with the scientific theme in Wikipedia and within the article, I think it should be fair to include something along the lines of, "or pray the gay away by critics" within the lead. Unless contradictory evidence is provided, that is my opinion. 159.1.15.34 (talk) 20:14, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Include as a synonym. I would oppose naming the article 'Pray the gay away', but it should redirect here, as it's a generally recognizable term, and it unmistakably refers to this subject. FurrySings (talk) 23:06, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Don't include. What a sad, sad comment on Wikipedia that it is even necessary to discuss this subject. Wikipedia is meant to be a serious encyclopedia, not a playground where people can rubbish a therapy that they don't like by using slang, popular culture terms as though they had the same status as terms used in scientific literature. The article is meant to reflect what reliable, scientific sources say about it's subject - and it should use the terms for it they use. That should be the end of the issue. Hebradaeum (talk) 03:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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