Talk:Timeshare/Archives/2015

he/she he/she himself/herself

Quote: "what he/she purchased and how that timeshare actually works, or realize that he/she has tied himself/herself with maintenance fees for the rest of his/her life. Or, perhaps the new timeshare owner feels that he/she has not had the time to research the company he/she just bought" - I don't know if WP has a general policy on pronouns of an abstract person, but either just always using the male form consistently has always been my preference (or female), though invariably this will offend somebody*. They/Their has also become acceptable in formal writing these days and most dictionaries list it as a correct gender neutral pronoun, though this will invariably offend somebody. FIVE occurrences of he/she (or himself/herself) in two short sentences is annoying to read; it doesn't flow well and comes across as bad writing - it can rephrased such that only a couple of personal pronouns are needed, which would mitigate the problem to a tolerable extent.

If somebody could let me know WP's policy or whatever the emergent consensus is on usage in languages that lack gender neutral person pronouns? Presumably there is one, this is a one-size-fits-all issue in which the same rule should work equally well for all English-language articles (e.g. as opposed to spelling, where in some articles British spelling is preferable)

*I recently read a book by Roger Penrose, and he/she devoted far longer than ought to have been necessary in explaining his/her exclusive use of the male pronoun as intended to be gender neutral (Cycles of Time IIRC?). 109.159.9.88 (talk) 05:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

• Why don't you write the section how "you" would word it right here. If it makes sense, and doesn't favor one gender over another, I'll edit it into the article. - Pocketthis (talk) 16:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • BTW, I want you to know that I wrote that original copy that way for a reason. Aside from the gender favoritism factor, and the encyclopedic wording factors. That reason is that a single woman of moderate income is no safer in a timeshare presentation than a single well to do man, or a family of means. It's all numbers to the timeshare resort. Humanity and compassion never enter the equation. -Pocketthis (talk) 16:55, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
• Please see WP:S/HE and WP:GNL for guidance. General Ization ^Talk 17:41, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
• OK, it's been reworded with most of the he/she and himself/herself phrases removed. - Pocketthis (talk) 18:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

This reads much better now! Pocketthis, as to why I didn't re-write it, simply because I have been bitten enough times to learn that pointing out issues in talk-pages saves wasted energy and editors have the ability to ignore or implement my advice as they see fit. I quit editing* because I was fed up arguing. Being bold in practice is an invitation to be flamed (*aside from the occasional clear typographical issue). Anyway, 'prospect' works much better; it is unfortunate we lack a gender neutral pronoun. I think the Chinese 他 (ta) would make a nice addition to the English language. 109.159.9.88 (talk) 04:44, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: I don't consider using exclusively male pronouns to favour a gender, as far as I am concerned it can be considered gender neutral for the abstract person, although some take offence. ("...one giant leap for mankind" is clearly not intended to be gender specific) 109.159.9.88 (talk) 04:51, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• Like I said previously, I wrote it that way to drive home the fact that man, woman, married or single, rich or poor, you are just a number to a timeshare sales crew. No mercy, no compassion, just the bottom line matters. It really had little to do with gender specific issues, however, being an encyclopedia, I got away with it until your complaint. That's OK. It did read uncomfortably, and there is still a couple of His/hers to drive home the point. Thanks- Pocketthis (talk) 16:13, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your point, and you're right of course, but it was bordering on not maintaining NPOV. I still think the point is equally strong as it reads now. a reader will be well-aware that the person/prospect on the receiving end of the sales spiel could be of any gender, and 'prospect' works well because it emphasises a certain degree of dehumanisation (or depersonalisation?) of the person receiving the pitch from the perspective of the time-share dealers, but manages to maintain NPOV. It seems like you've had a bad experience with these folks! Here in Britain I've never seen it advertised, I only know about them through US sitcoms etc... 109.159.9.88 (talk) 01:48, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

• It is the business of selling air. Purchase some air one day, and then try and re-sell it. Truth is, unless you're on Mars, you can't even give it away, and that is the situation folks find themselves in should they decide to eliminate the maintenance fees from their life. They literally can't give their timeshare away.-Pocketthis (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

semi-protect?

Is this an article which REALLY needs semi-protection? Timeshares are not a controversial subject or an active news story with biased or inflamed opinions ... It seems to be in need of spelling corrections, typo fixes, and many citations, etc. With the article semi-protected, no one can do that. That's just food for thought. It seems that semi-protect is being abused on this and many other articles. 68.37.24.220 (talk) 00:13, 2 December 2015‎ (UTC)

• Timeshare sales is an extremely controversial subject always in the news, with "extreme bias" and often displaying inflamed rhetoric from both sellers and buyers. An article is only put in semi-protect status when a consensus of active editors has asked that it be so, and those with the power invested in them to do so, have investigated the article's history, both recent, and past, and decided it was in the best interest of said article for these protections to be implemented. Thanks-Pocketthis (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2015 (UTC)