Talk:Rochelle Alers

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Alers is in Category:American romantic fiction writers, this is a sub-cat of Category:American novelists. She should not also be in Category:American novelists. That is unneeded overcategorization.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How about Maya Angelou; would you argue that she should only be in African-American women poets, and not American women poets, because the former is a subcat of the latter? And why shouldn't she be in Category:American poets? This is just disguised sexism and racism, and it is disgusting. Andreas JN466 11:49, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your response totally ignores my argument. I did not bring up that Alers is African-American. I brought up that she writes romantic fiction. The desire to have people in Category:American romantic fiction writers not be in its parents is not about sex or race.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, because your argument has been exposed as bullshit by the international press, who are having a field day with Wikipedia's crass incompetence. If your logic is that anyone must not be in a parent category if they are in one of the daughter categories, then you have to take Maya Angelou out of Category:American women poets, because she is already in a subcategory thereof, i.e. Category:African-American women poets. And if you do that, her ghettoisation becomes even worse than it is now, with Walt Whitman an "American poet", and her not, and the press will rightly castigate Wikipedia. But hey, go ahead, make my day! The whole system stinks. And again, it only seems to apply to women: Johnny Diaz, the lone man in Category:American romantic fiction writers, he is in Category:American novelists. I don't blame the press for the stance they have taken on this, and for the criticism you personally received in some of their articles, and will no doubt receive next week, when journalists get back to their desks: because they're right, and you're not. Andreas JN466 17:22, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• comment Hold on Andreas. Remember WP:CIVIL. And calling someone sexist and racist for placing things in a (correct) category is ridiculous and uncalled for. In this particular case, you are arguing for the "exceptionalism" of ethnicity/race/gender categories, which according to policy are not to be diffused - I don't personally agree with this, and I'd prefer it we had cats for men and women and diffuse fully to them as this current lopsided structure reinforces outdated notions of "normal" and "special". But this argument JPL is making above is unrelated - it's about whether we can put this author in a sub cat of novelists because she writes a particular type of fiction. And the answer is, from a policy POV, yes. Category:American novelists was never intendedeg to hold all possible american novelists - the subcats are there for a reason. So (1) please desist in throwing out the terms racist and sexist, or you will be dragged before ANI and (2) Stop edit-warring on this category - she is correctly categorized as a romantic novelist, and that's where she should stay. This is *not* ghettoization. (3) Stop reading the press on this story, which is in the main misguided, and shows a massive misunderstanding of both wikipedia processes, categorization guidelines, and the way things work here. If you're a wikipedia editor, you should be following wikipedia policies and helping support the community process, not egging on the throwing of one editor to the wolves. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Category:American women novelists and Category:American novelists are categories that should be applied in parallel. Gender categories are not for diffusion from a main category to a subcategory, as is the case with nationality-based categories. They are designed to create access to a subset of the total population for certain research purposes. Category:American romantic fiction writers presently is a subcategory of Category:American novelists, but it shouldn't be: romantic fiction can take forms other than a novel.

A system where non-Caucasians and non-males are "diffused" to subcategories without being retained in the main categories is racist and sexist, whether by accident or by design. And as we're currently seeing, it is widely and rightly perceived and castigated as such by the outside world. If people are no longer allowed to express opinions about Wikipedia here that are expressed in the New York Times, the Guardian and the Independent, then I don't want to be here any more. But I am sure we have not quite reached that point yet. Andreas JN466 08:16, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My removal of this person from Category:American novelsits has absolutely nothing to do with her being in Category:American women novelists. I am arguing that she should be in Category:American romatic fictiona writers and that placement in this category should mean that she is not also placed in any of its parent categories. I would argue the exact same thing if this person was a male, and even early on pointed out a male who is being dispersed in exactly the same way.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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