Talk:Disability Day of Mourning

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TJMSmith (talk) 22:02, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the Disability Day of Mourning was first observed in 2012, in response to the media coverage of a murdered autistic man focusing on his murderer's "love and devotion"? Source: A Disability Day of Mourning: Remembering the Murdered and the Vulnerable
  • ALT1:... that the White House liasion to the disability community read out a statement by then-President Barack Obama at the 2016 Disability Day of Mourning vigil in Washington D.C.? Source: as above

• Reviewed: Þórdís Hrönn Sigfúsdóttir

Created by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 04:34, 7 March 2021 (UTC).

• The article is long enough and new enough with no copyright violations. A QPQ has been completed. Either hook is fine. SL93 (talk) 02:21, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Global perspective and balance

This article claims that these events are held "worldwide". It has detailed coverage of US events and organizations, but merely mentions a few other countries in passing. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:52, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

@Dodger67, thanks for raising your concerns. The coverage is proportionate to what's discussed in sources, as while DDoM events are held worldwide, the majority of them (and the greatest recognition) are in the United States and Canada. Adding much more information on non-North American events would involve either OR or drawing from unreliable sources, and even the latter wouldn't give much. It's possible there are additional global RSes I'm missing, and I'd be grateful if any happened to be found, but I did thorough enough research that I'd have to have missed them pretty deep. (Possible exceptions for non-English sources, although the DDoM organizers themselves have mentioned that their own research is biased heavily towards English-language reports.) Vaticidalprophet (talk) 06:03, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Disability Day of Mourning/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 17:50, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be reviewing this article to help reduce the good article nomination backlog and to gain points in the WP:WIKICUP. Although quid pro quo is not required, if you fancy returning the favor, I have a list of articles in need of review here. — GhostRiver 17:50, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Lede

• "as a commemoration of" → "to commemorate"
• "by their caregivers"
• "different to" → "different from"
• I believe "acceptable" runs afoul of MOS:QUOTEPOV

  Thanks for picking this up, GhostRiver! My activity is a bit sporadic right now, but I should be able to handle this. I'll get the first three of those, although I'm not sure what the best way to handle the last one is -- I can't think of a good rewording. Vaticidalprophet 12:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think saying "more socially acceptable" might work, because it doesn't take a moral stance, just reflects culture. And I'm recovering from the stomach flu myself, so it's okay if you need a little time! The article's short enough that we should both be good. — GhostRiver 15:49, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

History

• I had an undergraduate professor who was adamant about not starting sentences with "however"
• The second sentence is also quite long with a lot going on and can probably be split into two
• Sounds incredibly pedantic, but "autistic" in the sentence about George Hodgins should probably link to Autism  Done
• I don't know, I don't love the letter to the editor being used as a source, but I also know that finding reliable sources on disability advocacy before a certain point is nigh impossible because of various erasures
• I did find this source from a local news agency to supplement the last sentence of the first paragraph
• disability-related days Is there a better synonym for "days", or at least a descriptor? I know they're not holidays, but
• First sentence of second paragraph should be broken up or rephrased, as "such as" is repeated twice in one sentence  Done
• "Such simulators' → "Such simulations", I think, as the experience is the really controversial element, not the specific technique (i.e. "wearing blindfolds" vs. "wearing blackout sunglasses" is not the issue, the exercise itself is)  Done

Observance

• Should mention in this section that the day itself is on 1 March  Done
• "In addition to the United States" → "Outside of the United States" (I get that this might read as US-centric, but if the holiday originated here, I think it's alright)  Done
• "Due to the large number of names"  Done
• Third paragraph should be moved up, I think, because then the first two are the "how" and third and fourth are "why/who"  Done

Impact

• "However, over time," → "Over time, however,"  Done
• "under then-President Barack Obama read a statement from the President" → "read a statement from then-President Barack Obama"  Done
• reader's community Syntax is a little confusing, makes it sound as if "reader" is a synonym for an autistic person and not "someone reading the toolkit"  Done
• "has been discussed" → "have been discussed", as two phenomena are mentioned  Done
• "how pervasive ableism is" → "the pervasive nature of ableism"  Done
• Washington Post should be italicized as the name of a newspaper  Done

References

• In [15] (Center for Disability Rights) and [16] (Autistic Self Advocacy Network), I think the "work" or "website" parameter should be switched to "publisher"  Done

General comments

• No photos in article, so nothing to assess there
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• Earwig score looks good, mostly falls under WP:LIMITED
• As an article on a holiday that began in the US, should this be in American English?

Putting on hold for now, feel free to ping me with questions and let me know when you're finished! — GhostRiver 16:09, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Vaticidalprophet Just a quick ping on this. I saw that an IP has addressed most of the points. — GhostRiver 16:03, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping this up with my spotty activity. Do you think it's good now? I've done a fair bit and I also saw the IP editing. Sorry I haven't been around much. Vaticidalprophet 19:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I think everything is good now (or I was just overly picky the first time I gave this a look-over). Passing now. — GhostRiver 20:40, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Original research/editorializing?

Hey all, this paragraph (below) only cites one source, and the source only mentions Disability Day of Mourning in passing. It's unclear to me how this particular film is notably related to the subject, as the current ties seem tenuous.

The existence of the Disability Day of Mourning, and the murders that cause it to exist, have been discussed as a sign of the pervasive nature of ableism. For instance, the necessity of the day was discussed in the reception to Sia's controversial film Music, about an autistic girl, and the scenes of the character being physically restrained against her will – something that has resulted in the deaths of many disabled and autistic people.

Wracking ^💬 07:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Content dispute

Regarding the current content dispute:

I disagree about the interpretation of WP:RS, WP:RS/PS, and the essay WP:IS being used to remove 30% of the article. The repeated claim is being made that the removed sources are "advocacy sources" and that this, as an inherent characteristic, invalidates them from being contextually reliable. This is not supported by the guideline, which in the relevant subsection explicitly states reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective [...] [a]lthough a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. Advocacy sources are used judiciously with explicit contextualization, as specifically recommended (though not required) by the guideline.

In addition, the specific claim is made that you won't find any advocacy organizations listed in WP:RSP. This is trivially disprovable by a search through that very page, which lists multiple advocacy sources as reliable with specific discussion of WP:BIASED's guidelines for their use.

The claim about reliability of SPB and HG is also, IMO, inaccurate. Neither source would pass the FA bar, but this is a GA, not an FA. HG is a subsidary of Dotdash Meredith, a long-term-agreed 'lower-end RS'. The website's about page explicitly discusses its editorial control, fact-checking process, and code of ethics, clearly passing long-established reliability bars. SPB, meanwhile, was a trusted and influential source of state political commentary run by a leading political consultant.

The essay IS is repeatedly referred to in the argument that these sources are inappropriate. However, IS makes absolutely no relevant statements. It refers specifically to the requirement for third-party sourcing, which all the sources being disputed are. Indeed, their removal reduces the degree to which the article properly relies on third-party sources, by proportionately increasing the role of first-party sources.

I do not consider the interpretation of the guidelines and essays used here to be applicable, accurate, or to justify removing 30% of a GA. Vaticidalprophet 23:53, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

Your repetition of your opinions on sourcing has not changed my opinion that these are unacceptable sources.

Your way of evaluating sources is by what their "About" page CLAIMS about a source? Other than the risk of being sued by the Washington Post for their claim of "best blog" people can make any claim they want on their own websites. That's why we have special rules for WP:SPS. And that's just one problem; I've stated my objections to each of these as I removed them in my edit summaries. ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:23, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

You've stated your objections, and I've specifically responded to those objections. I do not consider the interpretation of the guideline that is being used to justify removal representative of the guideline's actual statements.

I'm confused by your objection to referring to a source's explicit editorial policy as a way of evaluating that source. This is routinely done at all levels of Wikipedia, including deletion discussions, quality assessment (both GAN and FAC), and content disputes. "People can say whatever" is one thing, but "saying whatever" in the context of your editorial policy is an existential problem for a journalism publication -- if you claim to employ specific people with a specific history when you don't, or to have a certain kind of editorial board when you don't, or to have journalistic awards you don't, your writers will notice. That's the kind of thing that ends careers.

I'd like to clarify, given there seems to be some confusion on this point, that SPB is not an SPS. Many publications with a genesis in the pre-social-media internet era formed an identity as 'blogs' or 'weblogs' that continued long after attaining all formal editorial trappings. This can be seen by simply reading the citation; the author of the disputed article is Les Neuhaus, a known-quantity of a journalist with credits in an array of mainstream print and online publications, while the editor-in-chief of SPB was Peter Schorsh, as explicitly stated on its website (which helpfully links multiple additional sources confirming this, each of which also has editorial control and a lot to lose if it lied). Vaticidalprophet 08:26, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

I still see these sources as unacceptably low quality.

I don't understand your desire to use these sources when there are plenty of high quality sources (already used in the article) which discuss the subject: such as TheNation, WashingtonPost, VancouverSun, etc.

Additionally, with respect to advocacy orgs: they are biased sources, and using them DIRECTLY leads to articles biased in the direction of the purpose/goal/agenda of the advocay org, rather than putting their view in perspective with opposing views, (and fact-checking their claims) which happens when advocacy orgs are cited in quality Independent Sources.

Wikipedia isn't here to (nor made better by) republishing content published on advocacy sites or low-quality "journalism" sites, but to be a reputable encyclopedia. I see quality of articles as more important than quantity of text in an article. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:26, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't agree that these removals increase the quality of the article; rather, I think they decrease it. I also disagree that advocacy sources are being used in the detrimental context you imply. To go through the specific uses of every source being disputed (per this diff):

• The Disability Memorial is a primary source being used in a WP:PRIMARY-compliant manner. It's used to add context to the prior statement that only few names are read out at any given event; the two sentences combine to "the events themselves read few names from a longer list". The decontextualizating effect of removing this sentence worsens the article/doesn't make it clear why the actual practice is what it is.
• The HG and SPB sources are specifically referring to activism, which is explicitly called out/contextualized in the text; they aren't being presented in a void, but specifically contextualized as "this is what activists focus on". They are not in and of themselves advocacy sources, and as I understand it this is not your contention with them. (If SPB has any bias, it's to the right.) The statements they support themselves are factual and can be traced to primary sources (which are not used, because that would be an inappropriate source). At most I could reconfigure this a little to 'perceived' et al.
• The Ruderman Family Foundation statement is specifically contextualized as being an RFF white paper, in full compliance with guidelines on use of such a source. Research by think tanks is routinely used in articles with such contextualization; "finding a different think tank saying the opposite for all such cases" is not the expected response, and on this topic not actually possible, given the lack of..."disabled people aren't murdered often" think tanks? I'm going to be honest, I don't totally understand what opposing view you want represented there. I don't consider this droppable; your preferred version of the article totally omits actual data, and I don't think any good (or Good) article can be written on this subject without referencing actual data. It's possible to make any case you want if you don't point to numbers.
• The Neuroclastic sourcing is the most genuinely debatable, but considering the added contextualization in the latest disputed revision, I believe compatible with our standards for use of advocacy sources. I looked into it a bit elsewhere and concluded versions of this that used other sources would violate SYNTH, while omission from the article entirely would omit a notable related subject directly relevant to this article's scope for which exclusion would worsen the reader's understanding of the topic.

I'm concerned by your understanding of sourcing guidelines and the way you've responded throughout this dispute; you reiterate that you "aren't convinced" while seemingly not providing any opportunity to actually be convinced, or apparently reading the specific texts you reference for your argument (e.g. your misunderstandings of IS and RS/PS, the latter of which is neither "a comprehensive list of good sources" nor "something which does not mark any advocacy sources as 'green'"). I'm also concerned by your apparent pattern of using these interpretations to justify large-scale content removals, and the steadfastness of the perspective that these are always quality improvements. I don't dispute that trimming is a stage of tree maintenance, so to speak, but I have worries about the way you practice it if this is representative.

At any rate, we seem to be at an impasse. You have no intent of letting these remain in the article, while I consider their exclusion a detriment to its quality, which results in a stalemate. To prevent this situation from remaining indefinitely, I've posted a request at WP:3O for an uninvolved third party to review the situation and work towards resolving it. I hope we can come to an amenable solution. Vaticidalprophet 20:07, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

For clarification about advocacy sources: it is NOT that I WANT an opposing view represented, it is that when EDITORS decide WHICH advocacy organizations are worth using for sources in some article and which opposing ones are worth using as opposition, this leads to articles based on editors' Original Research WP:OR about which points from which advocacy orgs deserve mention, and how much weight to each. What happens when there is only one small pro-X advocacy org but 10 anti-X advocacy orgs. Does that mean we mention 10 times as many anti arguments as pro? You are talking about using NUMBERS from one of these. Take abortion as an example, whose DATA are we going to use? The data provided by pro-abortion-rights orgs or anti-abortion orgs? This is why we use journalistic sources rather then advocacy orgs. And just because you can find low quality articles that have advocacy orgs as sources doesn't mean that Wikipedia has a policy supporting this. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:03, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

My contention isn't about "I want X data in the article and not Y data"; I agree that would be a poor outcome. My contention regarding the RFF research is that the corresponding [whatever ideology this would be] research has not been done, at least at the time I was researching for this article. It is not the case that every think tank has an explicitly opposite think tank; there are many issues for which this is the case, but "research on disability-related family murders" is not, in the current political landscape, one. (I think this is actually subject to change in the medium-term future given the increasingly complicated role of disability in politics, but that's outside the current scope.) Your comparison to the abortion debate doesn't apply, because this is not a subject with that clear-cut political existence. I'd also dispute, in the case you propose, that we'd use journalistic sources at all -- we'd ideally use academic sources -- but, again, the RFF was the closest I found here. Vaticidalprophet 22:18, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that we generally should use academic sources. But the other point which I should have made above is that advocacy orgs have the incentive to "lie with statistics" by only telling the story from their point of view; cherry-picking data, etc. So my perspective is that we should not be using advocacy orgs as sources, ESPECIALLY for data, regardless of whether there are advocacy groups for opposing positions. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:44, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

I understand the concern, and I've certainly been on that side of the debate various times. However, I don't think the case for it exists here. If you look at the source being cited, the central advocate/subjective argument is not about the raw data presented in this article. The elements of the RFF paper that are specifically politically motivated and not handled by objective data -- that these numbers are underestimates and that specific narratives enable these murders -- are not reproduced in the article. (Where the narratives are discussed, they're supported by other sources.) I have this concern broadly for the arguments you're making in favour of exclusion; I don't think they're supported by what the sources are actually used for and how they're represented in the article, as noted in my prior breakdown.

I'm also frustrated by your repeated dismissal of my mentions of how PAGs work (without referencing any specific articles) as being an appeal to "low-quality articles"; between GAN and appearing on the main page thrice, thousands of readers and multitudes of editors have seen this article before you without raising these concerns. I'm not referring to any specific articles but this one when making the argument that the contextual uses of these sources are appropriate. Rather, I'm referring to the policies and guidelines about sourcing themselves, some of which you've used to support these removals, as well as to the content and context of the sources. I'm concerned that you're interpreting them in a black-and-white way that doesn't actually fit either their wording or the context. Vaticidalprophet 00:20, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

1) Contrary to what you claim above, the Ruderman advocacy source IS being used for CLAIMS of data: "one disabled person was murdered by a family member or caregiver each week in North America in 2011–2015" - which is what you used in the article, that I removed[1].

2) Additionally, it is IRRELEVANT Original Research WP:OR to include that source here, (the source never mentions "Disability Day of Mourning") because the subject of this article is NOT "Murders of disabled individuals by their caretakers" but an article about a Day of advocacy. To help understand and clarify this point: the March for Life (Washington, D.C.) is an article about an EVENT focused on ending the legality and practice of abortion. In that article, we don't include info/statistics on the number of abortions that occur, nor other statistics/information about abortion(s). ---Avatar317^(talk) 17:14, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Contrary to what you claim above, the Ruderman advocacy source IS being used for CLAIMS of data -- yes, this is exactly what I said. I said the central advocate/subjective argument is not about the raw data presented in this article. The raw data is presented in this article; the argument that this is an underestimate, that it has specific causes, etc is not. I consider your OTHERSTUFF example a suggestion that article has problems, not a suggestion it's a good example to hold up; OR does not mean "presenting sourced data about the subject the article relates to", and articles should be written assuing a general audience without specialist subject knowledge. If for whatever reason 'clear data on abortions' is something too inaccessible to present in that article, it's an indictment of the subject matter, and fortunately an indictment that isn't relevant here due to the agreed-upon existence of clear data. Vaticidalprophet 17:24, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

There is no "agreed-upon existence of clear data" - You missed the point of my post "Agreed that we generally ..." - I'll say this again, somewhat differently: Advocacy orgs are not trustable as sources of data, because they are not scientific organizations that try to gather data on a subject. The "research" funded or done by advocacy orgs can be described as policy-based evidence-making. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:46, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Response to third opinion request:

I think much of Vaticidalprophet's content should be restored. In the order listed above: The disability-memorial.org content is fine. The piece from The Nation should also be cited, as it explicitly notes d-m.org as the place where the longer list is collected. The only thing we're really relying on the primary source for is that the list starts in 1980, whereas The Nation says "the 1980s". This is fine. I'm open to the use of HelloGiggles as a source for something but the proposed sentence is not supported well by the source, particularly the bit about a "sentencing gap". I don't think we should use SPB. Sources that do not mention DDoM should be used sparingly, and this doesn't make the cut. A short, attributed bit of content from the Ruderman Foundation is good. This is consistent with the way we generally cite to think tanks/NGOs/advocacy orgs. The presence of other sources citing Ruderman for exactly the one killing/week claim bolsters the case for a mention. These include HelloGiggles and the already-cited WHYY piece as well as coverage in Florida AMU Law Review, Pitt News, and (without naming Ruderman) Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I don't think we should include the content cited to neuroclastic. It's mentioned in one speech given in one place. Some other less directly-related thoughts: the above-mentioned law review source could be used more. The removed content about disability simulations doesn't appear to have been discussed, but I support restoring it. It's directly supported by the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:57, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed explanations, and for taking the time to look at each of these multiple issues. ---Avatar317^(talk) 05:21, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

You're welcome! I have this page on my watchlist in case there are any clarifying/follow-up questions. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:10, 11 June 2023 (UTC)