User talk:Gwefr

Welcome to you, Gwefr. I'm very glad you're here and look forward to working/playing with you here at Fanlore. :) --Mrs. Potato Head (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the warm welcome!! :-)--Gwefr (talk) 22:37, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank for the stuff you're doing on Fanlore. I love seeing your edits on the recent changes page. --MPH (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your kind words. I am in the lucky situation of having not only my own zine collection at hand, but the European Branch of the K/S Library; I am the new librarian. :-) So I can check facts and add info, and I intend to do so regularly. --Gwefr (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That is a lucky situation indeed. You are librarian and protector of what must be a lovely collection. The zines you have access to and the info you're adding/correcting is invaluable. --MPH (talk) 23:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Did you run into difficulties when you were trying to upload the cover image: Slave City? Can I help in any way? --MPH (talk) 23:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I ran into a bad case of pneumonia and totally forgot to upload the file... Just remedied this now. --Gwefr (talk) 21:02, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Edit summaries

Hi Gwefr,

Thank you for editing Fanlore. Regarding some of your recent edit summaries, however, we would like to ask that you do not tell other users to stop editing Fanlore if they don't speak English. We are working hard to make Fanlore an inclusive and friendly environment for editors of a wide variety of international backgrounds, regardless of their English language level, as we value their knowledge and perspectives. We do not have an issue with non-English-speakers editing Fanlore as long as they write in English and comply with our other policies, and do not consider this to be vandalism, so please do not characterise it as such.

If you have questions about this or anything else, you're welcome to follow up here or contact us.

Best,
enchantedsleeper (talk) 23:48, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi,

I appreciate Fanlore's inclusive approach, but I think it highly problematic that a user who openly states on their user page that they use translation software can just go around and mess with articles. This was not the first such instance. They did this to the article about my fannish persona as well. For the KiScon page, our concom has put a lot of effort and time into adding valuable information and important corrections to the article, and it is disconcerting when a user who has no idea of this convention nor a sufficient grasp of the editing language just jumps in and adds new mistakes. They do not do this due to their "knowledge and perspective" but because they haunt the Recent Changes page. I would never dare to edit a Wikipedia article in, for example, Mandarin via Google translate as this is prone to introducing more mistakes than it would help with the quality of the article. This is not what inclusion entails. I have always been supportive of Fanlore, but these developments lower the quality of an otherwise very important project and make me wonder why we should even continue to add our work to it.

There are several ways you can go about interacting with a user who's editing you may disagree with that doesn't involve discriminating against non-English speakers. You do not hold a monopoly on who can edit articles, and the hostility is not only unwarranted, it makes non-English speakers and non-native English speakers unwelcome. I'm way more interested in the health and wellbeing of editors than I am the sanctity of a wiki page.

You can communicate with other editors via the Talk page of either the article or the user in question. You open up a dialogue and talk about whatever the grievence you have might be. You don't discourage non-English speakers from editing the article. I too 'haunt' the Recent Changes page, many of us do, so I'm not entirely sure how that's relevant.

The difference between non-English users and non-Mandarin users lies in the hegemony and power imbalances of our current world, in that due to colonialism, not only is English the hegemonic language the West has forced the rest of the world to comply with, but that much of the internet assumes English as the default, and sees other languages to be a hindrance or even a nuisance. The very fact that Fanlore is currently only available in English is a clear example of Western hegemony and the way the language has been structurally prioritised over others. Wikipedia is also available in multiple languages, so the comparison you mention doesn't really work.

Fanlore is a collaborative project in which all members contribute as much or as little as we want. We each have our own parts of fandom we know about. We each have our own regular edits we like to do. But we work together. And I get it, when I've done articles myself, I do get a bit possessive sometimes when something you're proud of gets reworded or reformated or whatnot after you've put a lot of work into it. I recognise that in me. But I try my damndest not to let that get to me and drive wedges between my fellow editors. Cause ultimately it often doesn't really matter? Putting it in perspective can do a world of good. Way more than hostility will ever do. And certainly not discrimination.

I would consider some self-reflection if nothing else. Discriminatory behaviour simply won't be tolerated. -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 22:09, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that criticism is automatically equalled to discrimination here. (As a member of an actually discriminated-against group it is great to see how careless this word gets used as a catch-all, thereby blurring it to an inch of its meaning. Congratulations on making the world a little unsafer for us.) I could not care less whether an editor is an English native speaker or not. I just had this odd expectation that sufficient knowledge of the editing language is required; we all know how faulty translation apps can be, and to fully rely on them for important fannish preservation work is highly problematic. Articles in languages other than English are definitely overdue, and it would be great if this found more support instead of forcing everyone into English editing, thereby just perpetuating and fuelling the hegemony. With haunting I mean: performing edits just for edits' sake, without actually caring about the content or scope of an article, just in order to leave one's mark on it. Like, for example, DELETING one of my fandoms from the article about my fannish persona just so, for fun. Renaming another fanac in the same article to a nonsense word, just so. These edits did nothing to add or improve content or structure. It felt stalkerish (even more so as this editor suddenly followed me on various sites outside of Fanlore - sites on which I have since blocked her). Self-reflection tells me that I need not put any future effort or time into a project I once fully supported. Some editors seem to be allowed to do as they please, regardless of the damage they cause.

Hi Gwefr,

I would like to stress that the above response is not the official position of the Fanlore team and was not co-signed by anyone else in the team. I sincerely apologise for this. We will follow up more fully to discuss this via email, but essentially, in Fanlore, we believe in critiquing edits, not individuals, as long as they are complying with Fanlore's policies. With that said, I can only apologise again for the response, which was not approved by the Gardening team.

Best,

enchantedsleeper