A fact from Tearoom Trade appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 April 2010 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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The subtitle in the lead, "a study of homosexual encounters in public places", doesn't match the subtitle on the image of the book cover, "Impersonal Sex in Public Places". Were different titles used in different editions? Pburka (talk) 02:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good question. Let's try to find out. Thanks for pointing this out, @Pburka I am also suggesting that we move the bulk of the material in Tearoom Trade to the Laud Humphreys article. Do you have an opinion about that?AnaSoc (talk) 04:00, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Library of Congress lists the title as Impersonal Sex, while the dissertation, which was completed in 1968, two years before the book was published, was Homosexual Sex. So, mystery solved! Thanks.AnaSoc (talk) 01:18, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Thanks for stopping by to give your opinion. I disagree that the TT article is quite well sourced. The most recent citation is from a piece by Babbie that is nearly a decade old. And there are only five sources, while sociology and other journals have published tons about the influences that the study had. If the article on TT is to stay, then we should add recent material that credits Humphreys' work for its pioneering influence. As the article is now, it focuses on the criticisms of the methodologies, and does an inadequate job of talking about the contributions his work made. I added much of that to the Laud Humphreys article, and I would be willing to do that here, too, but it seems like it would be duplication of effort. I am wanting to reduce duplication, and also believe that Tearoom Trade deserves to be set into historical and sociological context. Would you still be opposed to moving the content to the Laud Humphreys article if we did a redirect from here to there?AnaSoc (talk) 01:04, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@@AnaSoc: I am not saying it is well sourced, but I think it is adequately sourced for its start-class assessment. It is certainly not comprehensive - it is just at the basic DYK level, which is what I aimed for when wrote it ten years ago. It's a bit of a shame that it took ten years for someone else to stop by (but don't get me wrong, I am very happy you did). Now, duplication is not bad. If a topic is notable, it should get a stand alone article, that's basic practice around here. If you think this article should be merged and redirected, you'd have to take it to WP:AFD, but again, I strongly believe this study is important to have a stand-alone article. In fact, I'll note that the discussion of this study should be only brief in the author's biographical article, which should present a summary-view only. The place for the more detailed discussion is here. See also WP:SUMMARY. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here08:24, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome work, @Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus I'm proud to know the original author of this article. After thinking about it last night, reading your comments, and re-reading some of the 2004 papers on TT's importance, I agree with you about not merging the two. It is indeed a shame that it took ten years for someone else to be interested. It's an interesting story of how I came to this article; one of my students plagiarized from it, so it caught my attention.AnaSoc (talk) 20:53, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@@AnaSoc: Ha :) For the record, I wrote it because the title piqued my interest when I was a grad student; forgot where I saw it mentioned in the first place. Then after a bit more reading I concluded it's an important study that needs exposure through a stand-alone article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here12:29, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Now I am almost happy that my student plagiarized your work because it led me to this article. I had no idea about the long term importance of TT; all I knew about it was the criticism of the methods. Until this week, I had not read his work, and certainly had not appreciated the contribution that the study made. I am glad that the study is being revisited and that sociologists (and others) are returning to the content instead of just criticizing the methods. Even Babbie made a turnaround! Your work on this article certainly stimulated me to look beyond the criticisms! So thank you very much for that.AnaSoc (talk) 22:00, 23 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
