User talk:Sloane French

Hello, Sloane French, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:

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February 2019[edit]

Hello, I'm Abelmoschus Esculentus. I wanted to let you know that I reverted one of your recent contributions —specifically this edit to E. J. Levy— because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you have any questions, you can ask for assistance at the Help Desk. Thanks. ―Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk • contribs) 12:07, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Help me![edit]

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Please help me with...

Sloane French (talk) 12:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC) I'm brand new to editing Wikipedia. Thanks for all the great documentation you've provided, too. I've read most of it. A friend of mine, the writer E.J. Levy, had a bunch of material removed from her Wikipedia page by Twitter trolls (?) or probably people with a genuine beef, based on her latest novel, not even published yet, that some in the trans community find offensive because EJ uses a feminine pronoun to talk about a woman who lived as a man to go to med school and serve in the military. The sticking point seems to be was Dr. James Miranda Barry passing as a man, or was he for all intents and purposes a man? As in, the equivalent of a trans man without the term (since it didn't exist yet). I'm not stepping into that hornet's nest! But the vitriol and criticism has devolved into ad hominem mud-slinging, even about how EJ thought her sweet deal with Little Brown coming four weeks after her mother died was something her mother would have loved and encouraged her for. Some of the trolls decided to comment on EJ's misconstrual of how her mother would have felt about such a "transphobic book." It only took about five minutes to slip from "it's a horrible and transphobic book" to the author being a horrible and transphobic person. It's been a horrible three days for EJ.[reply]

As a favor, a kindness, to EJ, I spent almost two hours compiling and then adding back what I assumed was the bulk of the material removed earlier in the day. (I know The Guardian helped EJ remove some of the meaner stuff last night.) I added titles and dates of many of her award-winning publications and many of the other venues and prizes she's won. I rewrote the opening so readers would know that EJ isn't just a writer, but she's someone who publishes in hybrid forms and publishes also in both forms/genres/content. Why take all that stuff down? It's important to give the whole picture of EJ's career taking off. But someone immediately went in and took down much of what I'd written. She or he wrote to me that they'd done so because it wasn't "constructive." Good lord. I'm an English professor and words matter. How was it not "constructive"? It was certainly meaningful, substantive, and restored a substantial part of EJ's successes and earlier controversies. Why did this person sweep away most of my changes? That confuses me a great deal. Isn't it constructive to correct or amend the record of a writer who is being harassed, her Wikipedia page hijacked to fester, all prompted by this controversy her forthcoming novel? Seriously: What's not "constructive" about restoring what was removed? What's not constructive about being more thorough in what is written: EJ's bio is not a spare one. She is an important, up and coming, faculty member and writer. Graduate students regularly come to study with her.. I'm glad we're not recapping the sheer meanness of the twitter feed and fest. But a great response to the detractors and haters is putting together a new and perfect biography that confirms that EJ is an important figure in American cultural life right now. She deserves a better reception from everyone here

I feel very discouraged that all my work was for naught. Lesson #1, I guess: If you want to do some editing, first do it outside of the entry so if someone comes through with a blow torch and burns up everything you've sweat over, then you've still got a copy and less of a feeling of confusion and defeat. Not "constructive"?? What could be more constructive than reconstructing what was taken away, erased, tampered with, stolen?

Please advise and thanks.

Sloane French (talk) 12:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I've read your request and review the article, and would like to resolve this dispute. I'll be doing this on Talk:E.J. Levy, though, if you don't mind. –♠Vami _IV†♠ 17:22, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]