Based on user consensus paired with guidance from FANDOM staff, our position is that Yamato is to be identified as male in our articles. Our reasons for doing so as well as acknowledgements of conflicting information are concisely explained here. This ruling is subject to being revisited and changed based on the release of new information from official sources. This information will need to have been released following the date of the last discussion's conclusion (September 2024). Information that has come before has likely already been discussed. Posts about this topic that lack new information will be removed. We recognize that newer users may not realize our stance initially and will do our best to inform anyone who may be confused. However, those who should know full well our policy and go against it anyway will receive consequences up to and including being banned from editing. |
Permanent Locking[]
At this moment, I have no faith that this page will ever be free from the threat of vandalism. It's spent most of the summer locked, and the few edits to it since it became unlocked recently have been almost exclusively vandalism. Even with the ongoing cover story starring this character, I don't feel that I can trust the public to edit this page. Most of the updates to the page are being made by Content Mods like DN or Walrsu, who would still be able to edit if it was locked to Admins/Content Mods. I know that's not an ideal situation to editors who would like access to the page, but I've reached out to Fandom Staff and there's no way for us to offer increased protection from gender-related vandalism while keeping the open access. I'd rather have users pointing out needed edits to Content Mods/Admins on talk pages or on Discord, or even granting temporary User Rights to users that want to extensively edit the page themselves. Please let me know how you members of the community feel about this. JustSomeDude... Talk | 02:42, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I agree we should keep the page locked indefinitely. For a long time now, users have been violating the policy about Yamato's gender, and things haven't gotten any better. I think a good solution to this would be if there was a feature where users could submit edits on protected pages to be reviewed by an admin or mod before they would be published, similar to what Wikipedia has. AverageLiteratureEnthusiast (talk) 03:02, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't be so hasty with extreme words like permanent or indefinite. It would be one thing if the vandalism in question was those joke edits where they blank the page and replace the content with a bunch of gibberish nonsense, you know the ones. But as far as I can tell, these editors are genuinely working with the intention to improve the page. There is a lot of debate regarding transgender in society right now, every decade has its unique quirks I suppose. The people who disapprove simply believe in upholding good old fashioned values, that women sports should be fair, and believe that gender is a purely physical biological factor. It doesn't seem right to punish people for a situation like that.
Besides, how many of these editors are new here and don't know about the decision made in these discussions? And yes, I know there’s a note about it at the top of the page, but let's be real here, how many people do you think stop and read something above the infobox. They just scroll down and get to work.
Plus, Yamato's current cover story is still ongoing. Oda might have some kind of reveal about the gender debate planned for the end. I think it would be better to wait for the cover story to conclude before making any big decisions.
Maybe a better, less drastic solution would be to put copies of that note at the top and place them further down on the page, like at the beginning of each section.(GoldenOath20 (talk) 05:27, 8 October 2024 (UTC))
I agree with keeping the page locked indefinitely. We can always unlock it at a later date upon re-evaluation. Damage3245 (talk) 07:57, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
There still are things to edit like references, links, spacing and the current arc. How will users who have the time but can not when users who can but do not have the time do it? Rgilbert27 (talk) 11:02, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
GoldenOath, please do not use this space to argue about the gender issue itself, or bring up wider cultural issues/debates.
Nothing could happen that would allow a new editor to rightfully change the gender on a standalone edit, any changes must go to the talk page first. It wouldn’t matter if in the next chapter Yamato screams “I am a woman”, it would still have to go to the talk page and we’d have to get permission from Fandom to change it. I also believe that even if the gender were to be changed, the article would still be a target for vandalism, either from people on the other side of the argument, or by people who would take issue with the section on Gender.
As it stands now, we are banning users every couple of weeks for vandalism of this article. Most of those users are new users, who don’t see or care about the multiple notes on the editing side of the article telling them not to change the gender. I don’t think those users would want to join the wiki long term if their first edit is an argument that the veteran users are already sick of. I think it’s better to disallow them from making the bad edit, and force them to choose another article/topic for their first edit. JustSomeDude... Talk | 13:14, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies, I was only using it to reference my point. That those editors really are trying to improve the page, it's not their intention to vandalize it. That's why I would like to once again suggest that we try to come up with a less drastic solution before resorting to the extreme.(GoldenOath20 (talk) 03:16, 9 October 2024 (UTC))
Regardless of anyone's stance over the gender, the rule has been set, and the talk page would be for debate (presumably the talk page would remain open). I think locking it is probably best. No one reads the notes about not changing the gender either so I don't think more notes would help. People can submit proposed changes through the talk page. Also, I think if Yamato did come out and say "I am a woman", you'd just have people vandalizing the page in the other direction. Random11x (talk) 14:26, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm conflicted. On the one-hand, this is a shit-show thats brewed ever since his gender has been revealed. However, with the current cover-arc, and ideas shared above, I'm not entirely sure an INDEFINATE admin-only locking would be good. Babysharkboss2!! Killer Queen 23:20, 8 October 2024 (UTC)
Yes, the page should remained locked. Nothing about this is hasty since the vandalism has been an ongoing issue since 2020. The article has a whole section on the topic, and it is ignored. The article also has multiple advisory notes, and they are ignored. Dragonus Nesha (talk)
"Indefinite" doesn't mean permanent or forever. It means there is no set date of when the lock would end. It could change depending on the information we get in the future, whenever that is. Until then, the page should stay indefinitely locked. uknownada Talk 17:08, 10 October 2024 (UTC)
Here-Here on the indefinite defensive measure. Is there potential for edits to be submitted via the talk page as a way for admins to pre-approve, in the case of users who have the time to write up and produce the content as it updates for Yamato? (Especially since the cover story is such a point of interest for him atm) That seems like a reasonable compromise as it would allow posed edits either under their own subject, or possibly under a single subject dedicated to edit proposals, that would then allow those with the authority to implement as-determined reasonable?
Though I could see either situation creating a very long Talk Page. Is there a way to possibly create a specific page or forked page for users to pitch edits through that which is hidden behind some minimal user-based barrier to access? It seems like there's a couple of ways to ease the process of making sure that the page can still stay promptly updated with new material, while allowing control over the page that keeps the wanton vandalism filtered effectively. Maddwaffles (talk) 10:45, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
Had the thought directly after posting this one, but I also agree with JustSomeDude, it's clear that this particular character has become a subject that no matter where authorship falls (affirmative or negative) on whichever side, it wouldn't be done. Even if an author said one way or the other, the same kind of low-effort trolling would occur no matter what, because there's a belief in (likely) a lot of the troll accounts that trans identity doesn't exist, and trans people and allies will often be caught being (rightfully) defensive regarding that.
Whether someone is being a bigot and vandalizing post-trans reveal because they're angry about "Buzzword" and "Ideology" or "Agenda, or if someone has sincerely well-meaning intentions for representation and thinks that a cis-reveal is somehow "bigoted" or "willfully obtuse", in their respective cases the intention of the user who does vandalism would be wrong for it. There's no real long-term resolution where you won't have a vandal trying to do something that THEY believe to be right, which is probably why we shouldn't worry too much about the motivation of any given user.
Whether it's indefinite or permanent, I just don't think the public at-large can be trusted with some articles on Fandom wikis, and Yamato just happens to be one of them. Maddwaffles (talk) 10:52, 11 October 2024 (UTC)
I'm against censorship so no. Doesn't look like it matters anyway since more people want it locked. SeaTerror (talk) 17:29, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
>This strikes me less as censorship and more as curation. If vandalism repeatedly occurs, it makes sense to find alternative means to moderate the page without causing actual confusion among the casual users of the wiki.Maddwaffles (talk) 11:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
It should be noted that blocking the page means denying subtle edits, as most users won’t bother contacting an administrator to get them approved. Also, Yamato page had 108 edits this year, of which 36 were related to vandalism (18 vandalism and 18 reversions). Therefore, 18/90 = 20%, meaning that 80% of the edits were not vandalism. JFTcomics (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
>Yes, that's right, that's how math works. 20% of the edits are vandalism, with a matched number of reversions. This means that just shy of half (40%, or 4 in every 10 edits) have been concerned with vandalism, either in the perpetration of it, or the undoing of it. That's a significant amount of the traffic for the page, and downright disproportionate. Maddwaffles (talk) 23:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
- And that's not how math works. By considering both, it would be 36/108 = 33%, not 40%. Most of the edits are still positive or at least neutral. I believe a total block is disproportionate and ultimately counterproductive. There was a concentration of vandalism in a short period of time, which led to an exaggerated perception. The narrative being created is that the problem is severe, but the overall history of the page directly contradicts this. For instance, Roronoa Zoro page had more vandalism this year, both in quantity and proportion. JFTcomics (talk) 01:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
It seems there's a majority in support of maintaining the locked status, so I will close this thread for now. I'll say that for anyone looking to propose edits for the page (aside from vandalism, gender issues, etc) is welcome to post here, or reach out to an Admin/Content Mod to make the edit, etc. If there's enough people looking to make substantial changes to the page, we could also do "scheduled unlocks" or something where we can give people a window of time where we change back to autoconfimed editors for a bit. Hopefully someday Fandom can give us a better in-between option for locking pages in the future. JustSomeDude... Talk | 03:29, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
Subtitles Using he/him[]
I don't want this to be a big thing since the decision isn't going to change anyways, and I don't want to revive the debate, but I have found new evidence that using he/him pronouns for Yamato is the preferred official precedence. In 2021, the official Japanese Youtube channel aired a stream reacting to the World Top 100 poll. At 10:47 in the video, they talk about Yamato reaching #11. If you turn on the closed captions, the host of the video, Kamaitachi, is written to say "He became popular very quickly." Other Japanese speakers during the next minute or two are also written to say "he/him". Note that these subtitles are not auto-generated. They were manually written by someone who works for the channel. Kamaitachi also asks Gizem, a fan living in Germany, how popular Yamato is there. She speaks in clear English, exclusively calling Yamato he/him. I don't know any other video on this channel that's referred to Yamato with pronouns.
Some folks might dismiss this and say that a fan's word doesn't matter, or the official captions were probably written by someone with an "agenda". However, this channel does officially represent One Piece and it is endorsed by Oda and his staff. Regardless of how "valid" the individuals in the video are, this does set a precedence that Yamato is officially recognized, by a Japanese source, to use he/him pronouns. This isn't Viz or Crunchyroll, or whoever translates the games, it's the official Youtube channel. uknownada Talk 08:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)