Aug 11th, 2006
Endangered Wiki
The entry for “queerspawn,” in Wikipedia is on the chopping block. The entry must be improved to meet Wikipedia’s quality standards and/or contributors/users must refute the reasons it has been nominated for deletion.
I am not savvy enough about the Wiki-universe to comment on the critiques that are based on technicalities and guidelines.
But what I find so interesting about the effort to build a “consensus” regarding this entry is that the process is very similar to what happens in real life. Queerspawn come forward, saying this is who we are and here’s what we have to say (like at a queer conference or on a planning committee or for a writing project). Many people humor us or just dismiss us, arguing that because they have never heard of this before it must not matter beyond this handful of pip-squeeks.
Others react by assuming that simply addressing queer people who are raising kids is sufficient. You know, cuz everybody always has the exact same opinions as the people who raised them, right?
For example, this editing suggestion made by “Scorpiondollprincess”:
Anything worthwhile here could be Merged with “Adoption by same-sex couples” or the page propsed there (”Parenting by same-sex couples”).
My goodness, there is so much wrong with this critique. Where to begin?
First, not all queerspawn are adopted.
Also, not all queerspawn come from two-mommy or two-daddy families. Plenty of people with a gay, lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender parent do not have “same-sex” parents.
Finally, the misguided critique also ignores this statement in the entry, which in my opinion is the most important part.
…”queerspawn” offers kids of queers a direct connection to queer community instead of “through” the identity of their parent/s.
(Italics mine.)
Building a consensus to save or delete it will depend on how many registered users are invested in the future of this entry, and how many of those registered users are queerspawn (or queerspawn allies).
Given that the term queerspawn appears over 16,000 times in google, I would expect/hope to be able to read more about it in the encyclopedia that Wikipedia considers itself to be.
Your response to Scorpiondollprincess is great.