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Archive 1

Stepping Down

Concerned fellows and Esteemed Colleagues I am hereby refraining from edits upon this page and subjact on wikipedia.org . It is not because my reporting-allay has been incorrect or unscientific, but I confess that I have become enamored from the legacy, and therefore cannot testify for you of an unbiased account. Therefore, I have regone to an earlier version of this page, from "Kafka Liz" Revision as of 16:51, 7 May 2011.

The following Biography is useful for anyone whom should choose and add something for this page: Wisbey, Herbert A. Jr. PIONEER PROPHETESS PIONEER PROPHETESS Jemima Wilkinson, the Publick Universal Friend. Cornell University Press.

I believe that information I have contributed towards other Biographies has been objective, fair, and balanced. to the underlaying unity of all life so that the voice of intuition may guide us closer to our common keeper (talk) 01:12, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Seal of the Universal Friend.jpg

Not sure we can consider this image encyclopedic. Apparently, it was drawn by hand, presumably with using free-hand drawing with a mouse, based on visual memory. I am sure we can find some actual reference to this seal in print. Or if we cannot, I doubt it should be depicted on Wikipedia. --dab (𒁳) 11:40, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

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"They" as sex-neutral pronoun

I can accept the use of "they" as a sex-neutral pronoun but it leads to some rather nasty effects on the grammar. It seems that when Wilkinson is referred to by name we say "Wilkinson was..." whereas by pronoun it is "They were..."; this is very jarring in a single sentence or para I don't mind either "They was" or "Wilkinson were" but we should make our minds up.

Unrelated, I have corrected "Wilkonson" to "Wilkinson" which I assume is just a typo. 178.164.132.87 (talk) 14:58, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry you find it jarring, but this is how subject agreement works: they, like you, takes plural agreement even when its referent is singular, but singular nouns take singular agreement. AJD (talk) 11:16, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

For what it's worth: According to Adam Morris's 2019 book, "American Messiahs" (W.W. Norton & Co.), Wilkinson her- .. uh, HIMself, preferred masculine pronouns. --FrankMJohnson (talk) 10:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the data point (book). I've seen conflicting information about the matter. The works this article cites by Juster (and Roark) say the Friend rejected being referred to with gendered / gender-specific pronouns, and forbade followers to refer to them with such pronouns. Catherine A. Brekus, Strangers & Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 (1998), p. 85, says close followers obeyed: "they studiously avoided using any gendered pronouns to describe her [...] when Sarah Richards recorded her dream of Wilkinson defeating the devil, she used the convoluted, pronoun-free language that passed for standard English among the Universal Friends." However, Moyer (p. 9 & 100) conflictingly says the Friend's followers used "he" (maybe the "generic he"?). (Contemporary detractors and many later writers used "she". Moyer uses "he".)
Interestingly, these aren't the only pronouns I've seen conflicting information about: Wisbey (p. 7-8) says this person was disowned by the Smithfield Meeting in part for not using the Quakers' preferred "plain language" of thou (presumably using you instead?), but if this was the case, it was only temporary because Wisbey has some later quotes of them using thou and Moyer (p. 67) remarks that the Friend and followers used thou like the Quakers. -sche (talk) 01:10, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

A related discussion about how to describe Wilkinson in terms of occupation is ongoing at Talk:Stephen Hopkins (politician)#Description_of_Wilkinson. -sche (talk) 00:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Wikilinks in article prose

An editor has repeatedly removed wikilinks to other articles, e.g. the link from "worship meetings" to Meeting for worship, the link from "abolition of slavery" to [[Abolitionism in the United States, the link from "people held in slavery" to Slavery in the United States, and the link from "Native Americans" to [[Native Americans in the United States. I invite the editor and other editors to discuss for these removals here. Should this article link to other articles, as other Wikipedia articles do? -sche (talk) 16:17, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course it should include wikilinks. But they should not include links to simple words and concepts, such as "worship meetings". What reader is going to ask himself "what's a worship meeting?" Seriously. Just use common sense in the links; they should point to articles that will expand upon a reader's understanding of this article and closely related topics, not to American Indian history in the United States or the history of slavery or even the definition of the word slavery. And before someone cries out in wrath against the term "Indians", it is once again important to stick to contemporaneous terminology as much as possible. —Dilidor (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

How should Wilkinson's clothing style be described

An editor recently changed "Wilkinson dressed a manner described as being neither masculine nor feminine, but often perceived as masculine" to "Wilkinson dressed in the masculine fashion of that time". Which description is more accurate?

  • Hudson (p. 106) says Wilkinson "dress[ed] after a fashion [...] which resembled neither that of men or women", with a "coatee dress similar to a lady's riding habit", a cravat, and robes over everything, and a black beaver hat (when outdoors).
  • Brekus (op. cit. in article) describes Wilkinson's "peculiar and, to many eyes, distinctly 'masculine' [...] Wilkinson may have intended her clothing to appear neither male nor female, but according to contemporary witnesses, she usually dressed more like a man than a woman".
  • Moyer spends several pages (pp. 90-93) on "the clothing worn by [Wilkinson] and his disciples" and quotes several contemporary accounts of Wilkinson's beaver hats and robes or cloaks, "the fashion entirely her own" (in the words of one contemporary), and says "observers analysed the Universal Friend's clothing as a way of understanding [...] gender identity—whether [Wilkinson] was male, female, or some mix of the two"; Moyer quotes a few contemporaries who described Wilkinson's dress as a "man's"/"masculine", before saying "still others asserted that the Friend's dress conveyed, not simply a masculine identity, but a more complex blending of the masculine and feminine", quoting another contemporary as saying the clothes "conveyed the same idea as [Wilkinson's] external appearance of being neither man nor woman."
  • Only Wisbey (p. 25) deems it exclusively masculine, saying "clothing emphasized [Wilkinson's] masculine appearance. It most resembled the gowns worn by the regular clergy to the pulpit [...] loosely flowing black robes with a man's white kerchief or cravat" and a hat "similar to that commonly worn by Quaker men".

(All these sources also mention that the robes were usually black but sometimes white or purple, as does Brekus; an editor dropped the mention of this as too trivial - eh, OK.)
Based on this, I think the description as "neither masculine nor feminine, but often perceived as masculine" ,or something like "not exclusively masculine or feminine, but often perceived as masculine", better reflects the sources than the recently-introduced ("masculine"-only) one. I invite other editors to weigh in or suggest yet other wordings. -sche (talk) 18:08, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't like either wording. I think the original is confusing and the new one is inaccurate. I would go with "dressed in a manner intended to be gender-neutral but which was often perceived as masculine". I think that gets across what was going on a lot better than to say it was "described" one way but "perceived" as another without saying who is doing either of those things. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:21, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
My only concern with saying "intended" is that only Brekus seems to discuss what the person's intent was, and she qualifies it as "may have intended". I suppose we could adopt that qualifier ("dressed in a manner that may have been intended to be gender-neutral, but..."); what do you think? Or should we fall back on something like "dressed in a manner described as masculine, or as neither masculine nor feminine", or "...described as masculine or gender-neutral" (or "...or androgynous", if a paraphrase of the sources were permissible)? -sche (talk) 06:57, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
How about: They dressed in a manner that contemporaries perceived to be either androgynous or masculine. WanderingWanda (talk) 07:18, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
Maybe shorten "perceived to be either" to just "perceived as", but otherwise, sounds good. :) -sche (talk) 18:37, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 1 June 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moved. See general agreement below to rename this article as requested. Kudos to editors for your input, and Happy Publishing! (nac by page mover) Paine Ellsworth, ed. put'r there  00:04, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Jemima Wilkinson → Public Universal Friend – Conform closer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Gender_identity as the subject of the article states clearly what gender and pronouns are to be used. jrabbit05 (talk) 16:57, 1 June 2019 (UTC) --Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:35, 17 June 2019 (UTC)

To clarify this request is because the redirect exists in the reverse of what it should be and can't be done on my end jrabbit05 (talk) 16:59, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

  • Oppose per sources. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support per sources and guidelines. Over the last month I've looked through every RS about this person I could get my hands on, and (a) most sources include both names, with modern biographies (both Wisbey's from the 1965 and Moyer's recent one) use both names repeatedly (perhaps for the sake of reducing the monotony of using only one name), so WP:UCRN would not preclude a rename. And, perhaps unusually for a historical person, this person made more than enough explicit statements (about their gender = genderlessness, about their name and the birth name they rejected as a literal dead name, and about pronouns) for the MOS to clearly apply (although I suspect the MOS may only be guidance on what name to use in the article, not on what to title the page). I think the comparison made in a section above to how we use many people's atypical names even in situations unrelated to gender (e.g. for the musician Sting) is also helpful in allaying any concerns about this name's atypicality. -sche (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
    • -sche: Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that Moyer's recent biography doesn't switch back and forth between the two names randomly, but rather uses P.U.F.'s birth name when discussing their early life before they changed their name, and uses their chosen name thereafter. WanderingWanda (talk) 21:31, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
      • That's broadly the case, yes; Moyer does use "Wilkinson" in a few places for the person post-change, but upon review I notice they're places where he's summarizing (even though not quoting) what someone else (who presumably used "Wilkinson") thinks. -sche (talk) 21:44, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Comment MOS:GENDERID gives advice about the use of pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman"), but seems less relevant to the problem of article naming. I think the more relevant policies here are MOS:BIO#Names and MOS:ID which say roughly the same thing. The former says the article title should generally be the name by which the subject is most commonly known. The latter says When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources. If it isn't clear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses. So it seems like the determining question is: is one name clearly used more commonly than the other in RS? Colin M (talk) 23:01, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
    In my experience, most RS mention both names, but the number which go on to mostly say "later, [Jemima] Wilkinson did X" (with occasional "then the [Public] Universal Friend did Y" for variety) is higher than the number that go on to mostly say "later, the [Public] Universal Friend did X". So, it becomes relevant to consider (a) whether WP:UCRN is based on how many RS use a name, or how many times it occurs, and (b) whether any other issues should be weighed, like what name someone identified with (the MOS:ID part).
    (There's also a wrinkle: because "public" is recognizably a word, earlier sources often use the spelling "publick" that the word also had in other situations in the past, while more modern ones often use the spelling "public" that the word has today. A comparison might be made to how, when deciding whether to title an article "Color vision in dogs" or "Chromatic vision in canines", we'd probably accept that sources using "colour" and "color" both supported the first title and not the second title. But momentarily omitting the part with variable spelling, this Ngram compares "Jemima Wilkinson" to "Universal Friend".)
    -sche (talk) 01:19, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support changing the title to reflect the subject's preferred name. (Though I suggest adding a "the": The Public Universal Friend.) Practically every reliable source that mentions the name Jemima Wilkinson also mentions the name The Public Universal Friend, so either name could be considered a commonly recognizable name. Even if it's true that reliable sources mention the subject's birthname more often overall, WP:COMMONNAME says that When there are multiple names for a subject, all of which are fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others. It also says inaccurate names are often avoided and Neutrality is also considered. The title Jemima Wilkinson is neither accurate nor neutral. It negates P.U.F.'s gender identity, going against the common sense guidance of MOS:GENDERID (and WP:GENDERID). The fact the only recent full-length book about the P.U.F. (Moyer's 2015 book titled The Public Universal Friend) chooses to give precedence to the Friend's chosen name is a strong clue that we should as well. WanderingWanda (talk) 05:19, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
I can't help but wonder if a good reason for the title being that, was the 'draw' or 'hook' potential. That is, commercial reasons would militate against a mere personal name, and greatly towards something that would make people pick the book out of a shelf to answer "What?". Hey, why was the book "The Right Stuff" named that? Shenme (talk) 19:27, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
Shenme: Well, putting the title aside, the author seems to primarily use the P.U.F.'s chosen name in the body of the book. (Primarily but not exclusively: the author does use the Friend's birth name when talking about the time period before they came out with their new name, and also occasionally uses it when paraphrasing sources that use their birthname.) And while the book is just one source, it is the only recent, in-depth study of the Friend. Society's views on gender and identity are always evolving, so this book may give us a better idea of how to refer to the P.U.F. in a respectful/neutral way than older sources. WanderingWanda (talk) 22:56, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support because as sche said above "perhaps unusually for a historical person, they made more than enough explicit statements (about their gender = genderlessness, about their name and the birth name they rejected as a literal dead name, and about pronouns) for the MOS to clearly apply". LokiTheLiar (talk) 01:45, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME in the titles of the very sources used for this article. MOS:GENDERID relates to the prose of the article, and is much more often applied out of consideration for WP:BLPs. The MoS guideline does not override WP:TITLES policy, which is what we are directed to refer to in the header of this RM. At best, "Public(k) Universal Friend" is more akin to a WP:STAGENAME used for evangelical work, but its still not the COMMONNAME. -- Netoholic @ 19:56, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support as per sche and Wandering Wanda. Markus Pössel (talk) 18:14, 9 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Weak Oppose on WP:COMMONNAME grounds. A quick survey of titles of cited sources shows that 1 uses just Public Universal Friend (Indescribable Being": Theological Performances of Genderlessness in the Society of the Publick Universal Friend), 8 use Jemima Wilkinson, and 3 use both. I think it's also telling that of ~30 mainspace articles that link to this one only two do so via the Public Universal Friend redirect (though some of the links may be piped). I appreciate WanderingWanda's point about the most recent full-length book on the topic giving preference to PUF. If this is a trend that continues in contemporary RS, then a title change may become appropriate at some point, but for now it seems too soon. (Also, I agree with Netoholic's reasoning for MOS:GENDERID not applying to this problem.) Colin M (talk) 15:25, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
    FWIW, many of the links from other articles were added by me in the last month, and they (and probably most of the ones added by other people) link to this article's current title just because it's where the article is; they would be trivial to change if the article moved. -sche (talk) 19:31, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Support. It's clear that both names are common in the high quality sources, we might as well go with the one she used when she became historically notable, and that she preferred.--Cúchullain t/c 18:49, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Re "pioneering" and "fraudulent"

@Colin M: to answer this question, with apologies for longwindedness:

  • Some early writers, e.g. biographer David Hudson (who other sources call notably hostile to his subject) spread—and condemned the preacher as fraudulent for—stories that Wilkinson took followers' property or tried to raise the dead (stories the article mentions and notes are unsubstantiated, though not in the same section as the tagged line). For example, Hudson on p. 54 calls Wilkinson "this canting hypocrite [...] maturing new plans of imposture and fraud" and on p. 187 says Wilkinson's "whole scheme of religion was a mere system of imposition, fraud and avarice"; on p. 88 repeats the claim Wilkinson tried to take some land "but the marriage of this person effectually frustrated her schemes, and placed the property forever beyond her reach, unless she could invent some new fraud" and on p. 160 repeats the claim that Wilkinson tried to raise the dead which he calls an example of the preacher's "fraudulent enterprize"; in appendix p. ix he describes what he calls Wilkinson's "fraudulent conduct [...which] has been discovered by so many persons, and so much has been said against it, that it is difficult to account for her having had any adherents at all, even for a short time."
  • In turn, some other biographers and historians have considered Wilkinson a pioneer for taking up positions of spiritual and worldly leadership that were often reserved to men, while founding a religious movement and community and several towns in the then-frontier wilderness (which the article also mentions, though again not in the same place as the tagged verbiage). Wisbey's 1965 biography is even titled "Pioneer Prophetess", and Brekus and Juster have comments on the topic, although I don't have time to relocate them at the moment.

If anyone can suggest how the tagged sentence could be made clearer, ideally without duplicating too much content from elsewhere or moving it out of the chronological-ish sections it's in, please do! :) -sche (talk) 00:40, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

@-sche: Thanks for the explanation! I think much of my confusion came from interpreting "fraudulent woman" as "someone who fraudulently claims to be a woman" rather than "a woman who commits fraud". Also, I find it a bit confusing to put the contrary adjectives "pioneering" and "fraudulent" right next to each other, without elaborating on how such a split of opinions came about. What about something like Some early writers called Wilkinson a fraud, accusing her of manipulating her followers. Later observers have considered her a pioneer for taking up positions of spiritual leadership that were, at the time, reserved for men. ? (Just spitballing - it might require some edits for accuracy. For example, not sure if the contrast between early/later writers is actually supported by RS.) Colin M (talk) 01:09, 2 June 2019 (UTC)
OK, I reworded the lead to "...a woman, and either a pioneer or a fraud" (since it's s'pposed to be concise), and reworded the body like this. -sche (talk) 22:52, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
(Relatedly, I may add some lines about the higher frequency of women-led households in the Friend's Settlements vs surrounding areas later, per Moyer.) -sche (talk) 22:53, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

-sche I'm wondering if the pioneer/fraud dichotomy should be separated out from the woman/transgender dichotomy. That is, perhaps this: Though the Public Universal Friend identified as genderless...writers have often portrayed the preacher as a woman should be seperated from this: [writers have often portrayed the preacher as] a fraudulent schemer who deceived and manipulated followers, or a pioneering leader WanderingWanda (talk) 18:54, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Hmm... I wrote them together because the pioneer/fraud and woman viewpoints seem to be connected, with many people either (especially since e.g. the 1960s) casting the Friend as a pioneering woman accomplishing things in an era when women were not allowed to, etc, or (mainly before, sometimes well before, the 1960s) viewing the person as merely a woman and schemer and dismissing the claims of genderlessness along with the alleged claims of divinity or powers, etc. Perhaps there should be a threefold dichotomy: a fraud / schemer, a pioneering woman who did things in an era when women usually couldn't, or a person who was transgender / outside-the-binary. -sche (talk) 22:26, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Italics

-sche: you asked, in an edit summary: is the birth name in the body (in the "refused to answer" sentence) better in italics or quotation marks or nothing?

So a little while back I proposed adding the following language to MOS:GENDERID:

While former names may be judiciously mentioned, they should never be used, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. (See: use-mention distinction.) Use italics to indicate that you are mentioning but not using a name.

This language hasn't been adopted (at least not yet!) but ever since, I've been quietly following my own proposed guideline wherever I can, and have been putting trans folks' birth names in italics. I think it works well, though I admit it's kinda nonstandard: I don't know if I've ever seen a source put someone's former name in italics. The idea comes from the Use-mention article, which says:

In written language, mentioned words or phrases often appear between single or double quotation marks (as in "'Chicago' contains three vowels") or in italics.

As for why italics and not quotation marks: in the Wachowski RfC, I proposed putting The Wachowski Brothers in quotes, but one editor objected, citing WP:SCAREQUOTES or a similar guideline. When they were put in italics, no one objected. WanderingWanda (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

I see! I appreciate the explanation, and the goal, but I struggle to think of a comparable sentence where such a name (that wouldn't otherwise be italicized as e.g. the name of a book) would be in italics. Biographies of other people I checked use no markup, and pages with e.g. "answer to the name ___" seem to either mention the name with no markup, or use quotation marks. I think the mention in the first sentence is best with neither markup (italics actually draws attention to it, especially on top of the bold, and seems nonstandard compared to other pages). If markup is desired for the mention in the body, I think quotation marks might be better. I admit the body-text mention in that sentence ("refused to answer to...") is a gray area, though, and still don't feel sure enough what markup is best to change it (I did previously put e.g. the mention of the solidago species' name in italics rather than quotation marks, following MOS:WAW, although quotation marks would also look OK IMO). -sche (talk) 07:02, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, I don't have strong feelings about the formatting, and wouldn't oppose switching to quotation marks or even leaving the former name unadorned. WanderingWanda (talk) 07:22, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 23 September 2019

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved. Closed by nominator. WanderingWanda (talk) 04:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC) WanderingWanda (talk) 04:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Public Universal Friend → The Public Universal Friend – Sources almost always include the "the" See: [1], [2], [3], [4]. WanderingWanda (talk) 03:58, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Citation style

In the last two days there've been two different batches of edits which did nothing but change the citation style the article used, thus cycling through three different styles. I don't actually have any strong objection to any of the styles (although the original style did have the slight advantage of better allowing for notes to be added to references about e.g. what was on a certain page), and indeed assisted with the first change; I just want to opine that we should probably stop cycling through new styles every time a new editor notices the article. (WP:CITEVAR does say to "not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change".) -sche (talk) 23:00, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Hudson

I've cut back on citatons of Hudson, except where what he says is attributed to him in-text (and in one case where I'm going to look for better references shortly). Hudson's early biography was accessible and therefore long important to historians, but Moyer notes that "his motive in writing the book was to smear the prophet's reputation" and says it's filled with "fabrications and half truths", and Wisbey adds that "although its obviously hostile approach warned some readers, Hudson's account of ordinary events in the life of his subject was generally accepted as fact[;] yet when Hudson's use of names, dates, and noncontroversial incidents are compared with authentic contemporary sources, their inaccuracy is revealed in almost every case. Hudson's book should be considered properly not as a biography [...] but as part of the campaign to get [the preacher's/Society's] land".[1][2][3] -sche (talk) 02:08, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Wisbey, page 150.
  2. ^ Moyer, page 202.
  3. ^ Edward T. James, Janet Wilson James, Paul S. Boyer, Notable American Women, 1607-1950: A Biographical Dictionary (1971) says "David Hudson's Hist. of Jemima Wilkinson (Geneva, N.Y., 1821) was inspired by malice and self-interest and is inaccurate as to fact."

Pronouns

An editor recently changed the article to use "she" instead of the singular "they" it had used for years. I'd like to invite him to discuss and seek consensus for his change, and more generally I'd like to invite editors to discuss what pronouns the article should use: Should it use "she"? "They"? Should it, like e.g. Albert Cashier or James Barry (surgeon), not use pronouns?
As the article has < 30 watchers, I will leave WP:APPNOTEs on the Biography, Women's History, Quaker, and LGBT wikiprojects.
(This is not formulated as an RfC because WP:RFC says to try less formal discussion before an RfC: one may find consensus or at least help determine how an RfC should be structured.) -sche (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Unlike with Cashier and Barry who used "he" but whose articles avoid pronouns as a compromise with other sources that use "she", in this case avoidance of pronouns was even the person's preference and was what many contemporaries did, which makes it a particularly appealing option IMO. OTOH, many biographies have used "she", and some, such as Moyer's (the most recent dedicated biography), use "he". Although I think limited use of the singular "they" helped in situations where avoiding pronouns altogether was nontrivial (for which reason I retained those pronouns when I expanded and referenced the article over the last month), I think a Cashier/Barry approach, avoiding pronouns, could also work. -sche (talk) 23:20, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
--
Per the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, I've reverted the recent pronoun change while this is being discussed. WanderingWanda (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Misuse of plural pronouns does violence to the language. It also makes numerous sentences incomprehensible, as the reader's head begins to spin trying to figure out who "they" are. Also, this article is dealing with historical people and events, and therefore should attempt to use language and terminology that is consistent with contemporaneous usage. Yes, her followers did attempt to avoid pronouns at her request—but they were an anomalous exception at the time, and journalists and biographers made no such attempts. Neither should we. —Dilidor (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Singular they has been in use for centuries, and used by Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, and plenty of other well-known writers. And as Merriam-Webster's blog points out: the development of singular they mirrors the development of the singular you from the plural you, yet we don’t complain that singular you is ungrammatical; and...regardless of what detractors say, nearly everyone uses the singular they in casual conversation and often in formal writing.
In any case, I strongly oppose referring to P.U.F. with female pronouns. Doing so goes against MOS:GENDERID: Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources...Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns...that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. WanderingWanda (talk) 17:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
I agree that singular they is perfectly grammatical, and I also agree that the ideal form for this article is the avoidance of pronouns altogether, particularly since that was Wilkinson's specific preference. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:15, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
I have tentatively reworked the article to avoid pronouns. (If there is not consensus for this, we can always go back to the long-stable they pronouns, per the normal BRD cycle, as mentioned above.) -sche (talk) 22:48, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm OK with the article in its current, mostly-pronoun-free form. A note that the word "their" is used to refer to the Friend two times, in the section "Becoming the Public Universal Friend". One instance was recently added by me, the other was already there. If we want to be strict about not having any pronouns we'd have to rewrite, but in both cases I think it would be a little tricky to do so.
Also: if you look at the article history for the Friend's Encyclopedia Brittanica entry, it changed from using she/her pronouns to mostly using he/him in 2018: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jemima-Wilkinson. I don't think masculine pronouns are the way to go, to be clear, just thought it was interesting. WanderingWanda (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
I've tweaked the sentence structure in "Becoming the Public Universal Friend" to avoid pronouns, consistent with the rest of the article and the Friend's express preference. It doesn't change any meaning, but sentence structure is tricky, and I'd appreciate feedback on the legibility of those phrases. I strongly agree with pronoun avoidance as that was the Friend's request. Gatsbythegerbil (talk) 18:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

That was the Friend's request after death and return to earth. Prior to death, there is nothing to indicate a preference for an ungendered pronoun. In fact, in recounting her transport to heaven, the Friend states "The heavens were opened and She saw too (sic) Archangels descending from the east..."--Jburlinson (talk) 12:16, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Name

We should discuss whether it’s correct for the article to refer to the Public Universal Friend as Jemima Wilkinson. As the article itself says, they strongly objected to the use of their birth name: Wilkinson refused to answer any longer to the name Jemima Wilkinson, quoted Luke 23:3 ("thou sayest it") when visitors asked if it was their name, and ignored or chastised those who insisted on using it.

MOS:GENDERID says that for a Main biographical article (which this article is) on a person whose gender might be questioned (P.U.F. certainly qualifies): Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. The subject of this article self-designated as the Public Universal Friend (or Friend or P.U.F. for short) not Jemima Wilkinson. Paul B. Moyer's recent full-length biography, excerpted below, choses to respect this self-designation. Why shouldn't we?

the Universal Friend was "not to be supposed of either sex"...The second challenge in recounting the tale of the Universal Friend is a matter of language...the Friend was not simply a male figure but a being with an intermediate gender...they did not envision the Friend as female. Etc.

I suspect there will be some resistance to the idea of switching over to the subject's preferred name, and I suspect a lot of it will boil down to: the name Public Universal Friend is weird. And I agree, it is a weird name! My brain kinda went "bwuh??" when I first read it. And so what? A name being unusual is not a valid reason to not use it. See: the articles on Bono, Snoop Dogg or Lil Wayne. WanderingWanda (talk) 18:49, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I agree with you. This person clearly intended to be called the Public Universal Friend, and that name being strange does not change Wikipedia policy around names. If the news media can handle Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol, we can respect someone changing their name to a title. LokiTheLiar (talk) 06:31, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
  • Having over the last month looked through every RS about this person I could get my hands on, I will make two observations:
  • Most sources include both names, so WP:UCRN would not preclude a rename.
  • Perhaps unusually for a historical person, they made more than enough explicit statements (about their gender = genderlessness, about their name and the birth name they rejected as a literal dead name, and about pronouns) for the MOS to clearly apply (to, I think, the text of the article, independent of the article title).
I think the comparison to how we use many people's atypical names even in situations unrelated to gender (e.g. for the musician Sting) is also helpful in allaying any concerns about this name's atypicality. I support using the Public Universal Friend as the main name (at least for the period following the name change). -sche (talk) 06:49, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

One of the editors from yesterday suggested using "Wilkinson" before the article's subject became the Universal Friend, similar to using the birth names of Pope Francis and Malcolm X in the sections of their lives before adopting the name. I favor avoiding the name inside the article, but perhaps a non-proper noun approach (the person, the future preacher, etc) would be best for the sections prior to "Becoming the Universal Friend"? Gatsbythegerbil (talk) 14:44, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the birth name should probably be mentioned (it's currently mentioned in the early life section, which seems sufficient), in part because it's otherwise somewhat opaque why the linked-to historical-markered house or the mentioned species of solidago are named after a name starting with J rather than P. However, I agree that we could sidestep using the birth name in most places by using descriptors instead, as you suggest. -sche (talk) 19:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Currently the name Jemima/Jemimah is only mentioned in a sentence about a flower named after them, in the notes (pointing out the variation in spelling), and in the references. Nowhere in the entire article is the full name (Jemima Wilkinson) mentioned. In order for me to learn what their birth name was I had to google "public universal friend name" and find it on a different site. This obfuscation of public information comes across as a deliberate scrubbing of history. Why is their birth name not mentioned in the 'birth' section of the infobox, as is usual for people who have changed their names over the course of their lives? Why is the name not used in the 'early life' section of the article? If you go to Freddie Mercury's wikipedia page, the first line says "born Farrokh Bulsara", if you go to Caitlyn Jenner's wikipedia page, the first line says "born William Bruce Jenner"; this is standard practice. AwaweWiki (talk) 13:39, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Agree. To that end, I've added a line about birth name. It's weird to have to study the footnotes to ascertain the given name of the subject of the article.--Jburlinson (talk) 12:06, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
I've just reverted attempts to erase the PUF's birth name from the article. I do not believe that there is a consensus on this talk page to take such a step.--Jburlinson (talk) 08:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Deadnaming

There has recently been an edit war over putting the Friend's deadname in this article. Normally I would be completely against deadnaming any trans person; however, since the Friend claimed to be a new soul placed in the vessel of a person who died, it seems that it might be according to the Friend's self-identification to do so. It also seems that it might be against the Friend's self-identification to use a phrase like "The Friend was born on November 29". This means that it may be according to the Wikipedia policy, viz. "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise." to use the Friend's deadname, or at least a neutral term, before the time at which the Friend claimed to have been put on this Earth. Eeidt (talk) 10:20, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Completely agree. In consequence, I've added a line identifying the Friend's given name.--Jburlinson (talk) 12:36, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm flexible on the question of where and how exactly to deploy PUF's birthname, but the push to completely eliminate it from the article is something I can't support. Nearly all sources that talk about the Friend, including recent sources, mention their birth name. See: [6], [7], [8], etc. WanderingWanda (talk) 17:52, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
So I've restored the article to how it was before, with PUF's birth name in the lead and throughout early life section, etc. As I said, I am flexible on this, but I am pretty persuaded by Eedidt's argument that saying that "The Friend was born on November 29" etc actually doesn't comport with the Friend's own self-conception. Also I believe using "Jemima Wilkinson" when talking about their early life and "the Friend" for their later life is how Moyer's biography handles things. WanderingWanda (talk) 05:09, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
It's not really the role of a wikipedia editor to seek to comport with the article subject's self-conception. --Jburlinson (talk) 07:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm OK with removing it from the intro, only one mentioning it once in Early Life would be enough to make the article easy for people to understand. Removing it altogether, however, does not fit with Wikipedia's function to inform people and help people to understand information-without having it in the article somewhere people would find reading other older sources on them difficult, and "called a species of solidago Jemima weed" otherwise doesn't make sense. Blythwood (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
I've just reverted attempts to erase the PUF's birth name from the article. I do not believe that there is a consensus on this talk page to take such a step.--Jburlinson (talk) 08:41, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Geez this article sounds awkward

The wording is SO awkward: "The person who would become the Public Universal Friend was born on November 29, 1752" Just put either "Jemima Wilkinson was..." or "She was..." (Actually, was she male or female? I will assume female from some stuff in the article, and that Jemima is a feminine name. Whether or not she "identified as genderless" doesn't make her so.) Please clean this up, because it wouldn't hurt to use pronouns. Saying "the Friend" over and over again is as clunky as it gets (except "the person who would become the Public Universal Friend"/"the Public Universal Friend"). Call me old-fashioned, but people are either male or female. Make what you will of that. Wilh3lmGo here to trout me if I do a stupid 11:53, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

@Wilhelm von Hindenburger Look. Nonbinary is a perfectly valid gender identity (and so are genderqueer, demigender, agender, and neutrois!), and The Friend was especially notable for being one of the first such individuals in history. It should also be noted that The Friend opposed the usage of any pronouns.
It's not old-fashioned, but transphobic. It might sound "clunky" to you, but if so, that's your problem. Avoiding personal pronouns is what The Friend preferred, and thus it is all of our duties to respect The Friend's wishes.
Being transphobic on Wikipedia is highly disrespectful to the encyclopedia and its userbase. Please, if you have any problems with other individuals' gender identities, keep them to yourself, and allow others to "live and let live." Wikipedia is no place for hate speech and bigotry.
Thank you. I hope you can reflect and learn to understand. HighwayTyper (talk) 00:43, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Separate childhood name from “Friend” name

I made a few changes to the Early Life section in order to clarify who is being referred to. It makes the article ambiguous (not in a gender sense but in an intelligibility sense) and hard to read if the child is referred to as “Wilkinson” when all her siblings and parents were also “Wilkinson’s”. But to call her “The Friend” instead of “Jemima” is appropriate only after the name change. To do otherwise violates chronology, imposing the reality of a later time in an earlier one. - Wwallacee (talk) 05:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

The same reasoning applies to using the pronoun “they”, which is anachronistic to the time under consideration.

I am sensitive to the gender issues here, and do regard the friend’s choice not to be identified as male or female as a binding one, but that should not be retroactively applied to the earlier period, particularly when the primary sources refer to “Jemima Wilkinson”. Wwallacee (talk) 05:42, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I changed the Early Life section to use the name and pronouns consistent to the rest of the article yesterday. I see that that has been reverted by LokiTheLiar with the following message: "Subject of this article did not claim to have been the PUF since birth, but rather to have become the PUF after an illness in 1776. Therefore, unlike with most modern trans people, they are most properly referred to with their birth name before first identifying as the PUF in 1776." This seems like a similar argument to yours, and it seems that there is an ongoing disagreement over how to refer the the Friend before taking on that name. I ought to have read the talk page more carefully before making changes. I really just thought I was fixing a consistency issue.
I'm not going to revert it, but I do want to make the case for referring to the Friend in a consistent way despite the fact that the Friend did not claim to have always been the Friend, as Loki accurately points out. Based on how other Wikipedia articles about people who changed their names, I don't think that it should be considered excessively anachronistic to use the Friend's most recent name. Here are two examples. First, no one would claim that Nero, born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was called Nero before AD 49, but the article uses that name. Reasonably so, in my opinion. For a modern example, Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight and is consistently referred to as "John" even before he took on that name. To be clear, there are certainly Wikipedia articles that refer to a person's given name in the Early Life section or use both names Augustus, but it seems like it isn't generally considered incorrect to use a name before a person took on that name. I don't think it's necessarily "incorrect" to refer to the Friend as "Jemima Wilkinson," but I think it's reasonable and advisable to use the name "the Friend" for sensitivity.
As a final note, I'll also add that not all transgender people today consider themselves to have always been the gender they presently identify as, and Wikipedia doesn't seem to make a distinction in most other cases. I'm sure there are better examples, but Contrapoints claims to have once been a man before becoming a woman, and the article rightly refers to her as "she" even when discussing the time when she claims to have been a man. --TimPerkin9 (talk) 13:13, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
That's... honestly very convincing. I withdraw my objection to this change. Loki (talk) 15:14, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
I see that the early life section of the article has been changed to replace the given name with "the friend". I am troubled by this. In a good faith effort to be sensitive to the PUF's later eschewal of the given name and gender identity, the actual effect is to be insensitive to the PUF's most significant personal experience -- the death of Jemima Wilkinson and the revivification of the body by a celestial entity. The PUF was not the spiritual personage who animated the existence of Jemima Wilkinson during her first 24 years. Jemima's soul went to heaven and another soul replaced it. This new person was the Friend. To refer to the subject of the article as The Friend or the PUF prior to this transformation does violence to the crucial fact of the Friend's life, at least as experienced by the Friend. The lack of a personal name and a gender is characteristic of a celestial being, which is what the PUF considered the Friend to be. There is no evidence that Jemima felt nameless or genderless before her death. In fact, accounts written by the PUF of this even actually use the pronoun "she" when referring to Jemima. I'm considering reverting the latest change to preserve fidelity to the subject's lived experience but will hold off a little pending further discussion. Thoughts? --Jburlinson (talk) 14:04, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
(General comment:) Wikipedia's handling of people who've changed names has always been a bit...messy? And inconsistent; I am thinking about how, for a long time, the guideline on deadnaming trans people only clearly discouraged it in main article about the person, and suggested to use the name someone was known by at the time in other articles, and hence e.g. the Adrian Lamo article long used the name B. not C. Manning, yet in non-trans cases the articles on e.g. Bill Clinton's and Michele Obama's grade schools referred to Bill Clinton and Michele Obama rather than the names that actually attended those schools.
(PUF-specific comment:) MOS:GENDERID says Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns [...] that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. In this case, the person seems to have indicated a preference otherwise. If ContraPoints explicitly said she wanted any references to her pre-transition life to use he/him pronouns, the guideline would mean that the ContraPoints article would/should be changed to do that.
It is true that e.g. Elagabalus or Sting's articles refer to them by those names even in the "Early life" sections, but in those cases the people themselves seem to accept or have accepted that the person they were in early life when called Gordon (etc) and the person they were in later life when called Sting (etc) was the same or had continuity. I would avoid excessively wedging "Wilkinson" and "she" into every sentence, but I do think that in places where a name needs to be used, referring to the pre-transition person as Wilkinson seems to make the most sense and be the most policy-consistent approach. In particular, the change from "said Wilkinson's soul had ascended to heaven and the body had been reanimated with a new spirit" to "said the Friend’s soul had ascended to heaven..." makes the text outright inaccurate. -sche (talk) 19:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
In another place, someone changed a "his" to "the Friend's", also falsifying the text, as the pronoun was in reference to Red Jacket instead. Some people are changing things without even comprehending what they're changing. -sche (talk) 19:50, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
To that end, I've replaced references to the PUF or the "future preacher" with the subject's given name throughout the "early life" section. This results in a clear and clean distinction between the pre- and post-transformation self-definition of the subject. This cleavage was of primary importance to the PUF's self-expression. The Friend did not consider the PUF to be the same person as Jemima Wilkinson.--Jburlinson (talk) 08:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
During the early life section, numerous Wilkinsons are mentioned by name. To avoid confusion, subsequent references, including those to Jemima, should include the first name as well.--Jburlinson (talk) 09:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
In general, no, as outlined in part at WP:SURNAME. In a few places, where a sentence or immediately preceding sentence mentions other people, it may be necessary to add a given name, but in almost all cases the article and its sections can be (and is to be) taken to be about their subject. This is standard across articles, in which early life sections routinely mention family members with the same surname as often as this; Joe Biden's mentions his mother, father, sister, and two brothers, but the man himself is referred to as "Biden" throughout (after the first mention); Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and Mike Pence's articles are similar; Pence's article doesn't even use his given name in some of the situations this article does (e.g. Pence's article says "His paternal grandfather, Edward Joseph Pence, Sr., worked in the Chicago stockyards. Pence was named after his maternal grandfather, Richard Michael Cawley" where this article, in a similar place, does use the given name). -sche (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
This continues to be a vexed issue, which is the reason why this article should never have been judged GA status; it is too unstable. Briefly, the consensus is that the birth name will be used until the subject's "death" and reanimation by the Friend. To refer to the subject as the Friend prior to this event does violence to the subject's own self-identification. I ask all editors to refrain from making name changes to the "early life" section without thoroughly discussing here.--Jburlinson (talk) 12:08, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
@Wwallacee Have you fact-checked?? Singular they was not "anachronistic" at the time of The Friend's heyday. It has been attested in English since the 1300s. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, used it! HighwayTyper (talk) 00:45, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

GA toolbox
Reviewing
This review is transcluded from Talk:Public Universal Friend/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: JPxG (talk · contribs) 23:05, 14 March 2021 (UTC)


I'll do my best! jp×g 23:05, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I am getting around to this now. jp×g 20:04, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
  • checkY Earwig's tool finds nothing remotely close to a potential copyvio.
  • checkY All images on the page are high quality, under free licenses, and clearly illustrate the thing they are being used to illustrate.

Referencing

  • checkY Everything is referenced quite well. There are no uncited sections, no uncited paragraphs, and there are plenty of inlines for every statement that seems like it could be challenged.
  • checkY The works cited are largely scholarly works.

Prose

  • checkY Generally well-written, and broadly follows MoS.
  • I understand that this article is on a contentious subject, and there's been a lot of back-and-forth about a variety of things. While I don't wish to rehash talk page drama, the present consensus seems to have converged on a very awkward situation. Currently, all pronouns whatsoever are eschewed to the greatest extent possible. MOS:GNL is silent on the issue, and there are no GAs I could find about people with non-binary gender identities. The task here, then, is not easy.
    (reply to [[User:JPxG) FWIW, the guidance on pronouns is not in GNL but in the main MOS page, MOS:#Gender_identity (update: while still summarized on the main MOS page, the full guideline is now at MOS:BIO#Gender_identity), "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns [...] that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification". Perhaps unusually for a person from this long ago, this person not only expressed a not-binary gender but also specifically rejected pronouns (though personally I was fine with the they/them pronouns the article long used). There are some other long articles (including one FA) which also avoid pronouns and could be compared in their prose, e.g. James Barry (surgeon) and Albert Cashier, although ironically they're mostly on people who expressed typical, binary, male, he/him genders — those articles avoid pronouns not out of compliance with the MOS (as here) but out of compromise with people who wanted to directly contravene it and use she/her. If any of the sentences are confusing, let me known and I (or others, naturally, this being a wiki) can try and improve it. -sche (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2021 (UTC) updated -sche (talk) 20:07, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Editors continue to delete mention of the subject's given name, even when referring to the pre-transfiguration person. I'd be uncomfortable with this article achieving GA status while there continues to be this kind of instability.--Jburlinson (talk) 10:16, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Problems concerning the subject's name and use of pronouns continue to undermine this article's stability. It must be failed as a GA at this point in time at least.--Jburlinson (talk) 09:59, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I understand the concern, but I don't think occasional IP vandalism / unhelpful edits to one thing, which is immediately reverted by multiple other editors, "destabilizes" an article (indeed, the speed by which so many editors undo the unhelpful IP edits suggests the stable version is clear). Otherwise, vandals could block any GA nom by vandalizing it. Barack Obama is a Featured Article, and has had to be indef semiprotected for almost a decade now, and still a third of the most recent page of its edit history consists of editors reverting or undoing vandalism or unhelpful edits... -sche (talk) 12:43, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Reviewer: Aussie Article Writer (talk)

I am also reviewing this incredibly well written article. I have a few questions as I’m reading:

  • In the 18th and 19th centuries, some writers said that the person was dead for a brief or even extended period (some spinning tales of a dramatic rise from a coffin), while others suggested the whole illness was feigned; accounts by the doctor and other witnesses say that the illness was real, but that no-one noticed the person die
    In “the person”, ate they referring to Wilkinson, or the other public friends who travelled the countryside? I’m a bit confused.
    I agree that wording is really awkward, though I think it'd be odd if someone took it as being about someone other than the article subject and who was not previously mentioned as being in danger of dying. (We could have fun adding all kinds of people like that, heh: "George Washington, who was elsewhere at the time, also did not die."😂) I tried to improve it, also clearing up the ambiguity of "no-one noticed the person die", which could be misread as "they didn't even pay attention while the person did indeed die". -sche (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
  • making the Friend "the first native-born American to found a religious community
    Is there some doubt about this fact? If so, shouldn’t we state who asserts this? With just the quotes it seems odd, almost like we aren’t sure but are quoting it from a source we’ve stick in a footnote. If it is clear this is the case, then I would think we just state it as a cited fact from a reputable source.
    Good point. I included the quotation because one other source says "first American woman", which is a compatible statement (both can be true), but I worried someone down the line who saw the narrower claim might mistakenly assume this article's statement of "first American" was an erroneous Wikipedian over-broadening and "correct" it to "first American woman" (unnecessarily opening a can of misgendering worms), so I wanted to note that the cited source supports "first American". -sche (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
    Could we add a footnote? We can’t add this in the body, but an explanatory footnote is normally used to clarify finer points like this one. Aussie Article Writer (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
    That would work. Indeed, it occurs to me that we could just add the quote to the existing reference footnote. -sche (talk) 06:54, 16 June 2021 (UTC)
  • "pride and ambition to distinguish [them]self from the rest of mankind"
    Whilst we must respect the gender that the subject identified themselves as, I don’t believe it is factual or neutral to change the historical words of someone who lived at the time who commented on the Friend. May I ask what was actually stated? If they used a gendered pronoun then we don’t need to editorialise it. We don’t restrict offensive text where it is necessarily quoted. It is no different to quoting someone who says a swear word… if the article needs the quote, then we include the swear word. We weigh accuracy and neutrality over the offence some may take to the quote.
    This was one of the subjects of a set of big RfCs last year into earlier this year, the consensus of which, documented at WP:MOSBIO (by yours truly, as it happens! hehe), was to "paraphrase, elide, or use square brackets to replace portions of quotations to avoid deadnaming or misgendering, except in rare cases where exact wording cannot be avoided, as where there is a pun". However, I think we could sidestep the issue by dropping the quote and paraphrasing, like "[...]what William Savery considered pride." or "[...]what William Savery considered pride and ambition to be distinct." What do you think? -sche (talk) 12:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
    Oh! I apologise! That is indeed what it says! I had no idea… thank you for letting me know (I could have walked into a landline later…). I withdraw my statement. However, that change really is better. Thank you! - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
  • The Society of Universal Friends erected a grain mill in Dresden, the first mill in western New York, now marked with a New York state historic marker.
    could we get a source for the fact it was the first mill?
    After poking around for modern sources and only finding a few that quoted or paraphrased the statement from us, I find that the source cited for the first half of the sentence (McIntosh) does indeed say this, although it's old, so I don't know if I'd rely on it for a claim of "first". I also didn't find the mill on the list of historical markers, so I'm just going to drop those two statements. I appreciate your thorough oversight of the article! :) -sche (talk) 13:13, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks! - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Passed

  • All concerns raised have been addressed. This is a fine example of a good Wikipedia article. (Actually, I think it is somewhat better than “good”, but that’s what this forum is for!) I am being bold and promoting it to GA status. - Aussie Article Writer (talk) 07:55, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Using they/them?

This article utilizes the Friend's full name several times in place of pronouns, which is understandable for several reasons. I 100% believe that a person's pronouns in an article should be the ones they use themselves, and the Friend didn't use he/him nor she/her - not specifying what to use in their stead. Should the Friend be referred to using pronouns at all, and if so, how often should they be used? Lucksash (talk) 20:39, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Deadpronouns seemed to be avoided, but what about the deadname?

I can understand the omission of The Friend's deadpronouns (which is very good, and I applaud that), but what about The Friend's deadname? I guess it could be okay if mentioned, like, once, at the beginning of the biography, describing The Friend's birth, but The Friend's deadname seems to be used throughout the lead section, before The Friend's "transfiguration" and coming out.

Is that proper? I wouldn't refer to Caitlyn Jenner by her deadname or deadpronouns, or Elliot Page by his. Would you? HighwayTyper (talk) 00:51, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Equating the PUF with either Jenner or Page disrespects all three. They have completely different life stories. The central incident in the case of the PUF is the death of Jemima Wilkinson and transfiguration as the PUF, a genderless soul completely distinct from Jemima's spirit. This genderlesssness has an essentially religious significance, not unlike certain teachings of gnosticism. There is no evidence whatsoever of Jemima Wilkinson, or anyone else, considering herself genderless or trans prior to the transfiguration. Biographers generally use feminine pronouns to refer to Jemima Wilkinson and modern gender-neutral pronouns for the Public Universal Friend, since followers considered the two to be distinct entities -- the former a woman, and the latter a genderless being. In contrast, Jenner and Page did not cease being themselves during or after gender transition; one could argue they become more fully themselves.--Jburlinson (talk) 23:56, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
This logic is a bit confusing to me. Are we subscribing to the view that one's gender identity can change midway through life, with the concept of a deadname therefore not applying, but only if the change is due to religious revelation? For example, does Caitlyn Jenner's sense of transformation not matter, because it wasn't a William James style religious experience for her? I am definitely not going to edit the article, because the whole thing is terribly confusing to me, but would like some clarity on this talk page. NotBartEhrman (talk) 13:11, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
I don't understand the confusion. The logic is that Jenner and the PUF are two distinct, unique personages. What applies for one does not necessarily apply for the other. In the case of the PUF the gender identity did not change midway through life. The entire identity changed, in that Jemima Wilkinson died. The PUF was a totally different person, who was genderless; i.e. neither male nor female. This notion goes way back at least as far as the gnostic gospel of Thomas, where Jesus says: "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the (Father's) domain." I hope that's clear. Jburlinson (talk) 01:55, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for the clarification. I agree with your assessment. NotBartEhrman (talk) 12:18, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Stability

@User:Jburlinson, re diff: this article in fact displays a very high level of stability, comparable to other FAs; from last year to now there's been very little overall change, mainly wikilinks and dashes. I think you're taking "every couple of months someone makes an edit changing a few words against consensus, but is immediately reverted by other editors" to be "instability", but AFAICT that's a good sign of the stability of the consensus text of an FA, for example the FA on Franz Kafka, where almost the entire page of edit history since just March consists of as many people editing and being reverted in just a few months as this page has seen in a year. (And from last year to now, that article has seen significantly more substantive change than this one.) We could request a low level of page protection to prevent the occasional edit-against-consensus from happening, but since they're so infrequent and so swiftly reverted, I don't know that an admin would think it necessary. -sche (talk) 17:43, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

It's just happened again. This article is not stable. The same issue comes up again and again. Multiple reversions is the very definition of "unstable". GA status should be reconsidered.--Jburlinson (talk) 01:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
Happening again and again. I'm going to recommend de-listing this as a GA; it's just not stable.
You want a GA delisted because of sporadic IP vandalism? NotBartEhrman (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
First, it's not sporadic, it's steady. Second, it's not vandalism -- at least in the minds of numerous editors. It represents a distinct point of view that is not going to go away. A stable article is one in which editors do not have to dog the article to make the same reversions over and over again.--Jburlinson (talk) 00:58, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
It's just a single IP editor with an obsession/complex, who will probably never come to this page to discuss or acknowledge the consensus, so indistinguishable from vandalism for me. Easy to block and move on NotBartEhrman (talk) 14:28, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Given how swiftly the vandalism gets reverted, I wonder if an admin would even consider it enough of a nuisance to bother apply pending-changes protection against. I doubt anyone buys the argument that an article whose text today is identical to its text a month ago, differing only in the placement of a period, is "unstable", lol — whole sections of the J. K. Rowling article have been rewritten (and stayed rewritten, I'm not speaking of the edits that get reverted) and it's still a featured article. We could request pending-changes or semi-protection of this article, like that article has. -sche (talk) 09:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

"the Friend"

What is the actual RS where this person is called "the Friend"? Now, I see the Wisbey 2009 source calling them "her" and "Jemima," and this Nyt review calls them "he" [9]. My issue is this: MOS:NB talks about "Refer[ring] to any person whose gender might be questioned with gendered words" (emphasis added) that correspond to their latest communicated preference, not any term whatsoever that they preferred for whatever reason. If the subject of this article identified as genderless, calling them "Wilkinson" clearly would not ascribe a gender, so would seem to be fine. I think calling them "the Friend" is iffy because the name "Public Universal Friend," over and above a merely genderless name, also evidently had theological connotations that are not vouchsafed by MOS:NB. Wuffuwwuf (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm... Now I'm looking at the edit history and see someone says the consensus is indeed to call them "Wilkinson"? So why does it say "the Friend" all over the place? What are the diffs for the alleged consensus? Wuffuwwuf (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
...now that you point it out, it's not entirely clear to me where a consensus to use (rather than just mention) the name Wilkinson when discussing pre-transition events is; perhaps the editor who cited it can provide us both with a link to it. Discussion of title was here, one discussion of the name in the article body is here, and you see the two other discussions of the name (including the topic of retaining Wilkinson for pre-transition references) at the top of this page. I actually used "Wilkinson" throughout the article when I first started expanding and improving it a few years ago, but the aforementioned discussions pointed out that the person explicitly changed their full name and rejected not only "Jemima" but also "Wilkinson", and established that we should use the post-transition name for post-transition events.
Although it's now common for people to only change first but not last names when coming out, there are people who've changed both first and last names (e.g. Fallon Fox), and we indeed don't use either part of the old name in those cases. The most recent of the two book-length biographies, Moyer's, refers to "the Friend" (and "he") when discussing post-transition events. In period (and modern) texts one finds varying degrees of abbreviation, from the full "the Public Universal Friend", "the Universal Friend", "the Friend", "UF", "PUF". While we could use the full name "the Public Universal Friend" over and over, "the Friend" is more fluent and accords with RS from recent decades (Wisbey's work being from 1964). -sche (talk) 23:00, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Ok, and points taken. The problem is still that "Public Universal Friend" is simply not a name; it's basically a religious title that has nothing to do with their gender. It seems to me that the inference here is "they transitioned, so we can't use their deadname, but they didn't take a new name, so we have to call them by their invented religious title." It seems to me that there is just as much reason to do this as there would be to refer to Ezra Miller as being literally Jesus if they only took the steps of rejecting their current first and last names and not accepting new names, which is an absurd reading of MOS and cannot be true. This brings me to the fact that Moyer's book is not so clear-cut as you have described. Moyer, somewhat bizarrely, seems to call them "the Friend" when portraying their actions in a positive or neutral way, while calling them "Wilkinson" when discussing contemporary negative views of them. I'm not sure what you meant by the other book-length biography; what would that be? In the absence of substantial consistency among RS I think we should use common sense and call them Wilkinson. This is not perfect for obvious reasons but repeatedly calling them "the Friend" or "Public Universal Friend" in wikivoice lends unwarranted assent to their claim of having transformed into a prophet. Wuffuwwuf (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
I was curious about use of "The Friend" as well. A google scholar search shows multiple examples of "The Friend" in books and journals.[10] Sativa Inflorescence (talk) 18:43, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
If there is indeed a lack of consensus on use of the name Wilkinson, that in itself constitutes enough instability to disqualify the article as GA. Furthermore, insistence on eliminating all use of the birth name reveals a neutrality issue by representing an editorial bias in favor of using language unique to 21st century transgender discourse. Therefore, I propose the following as a consensus statement regarding use of the birth name and "the Friend":

The subject of this article is to be referred to as Jemima Wilkinson (or Wilkinson) up to the reported death of that person. Subsequent references are to be "the Friend", the "Public Universal Friend" or the "PUF".

This is basically the understanding reached by numerous editors who've participated in talk discussions.


What do you think?--Jburlinson (talk) 02:06, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't know, delisting it seems unwarranted. Wuffuwwuf (talk) 03:50, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
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