Talk:Carrie Rentschler

Writing about Women on Wikipedia

In the lead section I noticed that Dr. Rentschler was being defined as the wife of her husband. This kind of biased language is to be avoided as it describes her as a possession of her husband when the topic of this article is her biography as an academic and scholar of feminist media studies. Please refer to this guide (and this particular section) for more information: Wikipedia:Writing_about_women#Marriage Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 02:19, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

Out of Date Info

I was doing some minor editing to the page's layout, adding external links, fixing the lead section, among other things and I discovered that there's inaccurate info in the article. I would fix it right now, but I'm up too late and can't focus. Rentschler is NOT the director of the ISGF any longer: https://www.mcgill.ca/igsf/about So we need to get accurate and up to date info about her current role(s). Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 09:04, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

I added a press release that confirms that she was the director of the institute, but I can't find a reliable secondary source that confirms the time period that she was the director. I'm not sure what to do at this point, since that sort of fact would be unusual to report on (I mean something like "Dr. Rentschler was the director of the ISGF from this date to that date"). Would I need to remove this factoid from the article altogether? I'll try using the internet archive again later, but I doubt that this would satisfy our requirements. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 03:44, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

RfC

In the process of editing this article I discovered that she is no longer the director of the ISGAF. I cannot find a reliable third party source (so far) that provides dates when she was the director. Should I remove all mention of her ever being the director until I (or someone else) find reliable third party sources that confirm this information? Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 03:48, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't see anything about ISGAF in the article or in her bio at McGill. Can you point out the specific section you are thinking of removing?Seraphim System ^(talk) 14:50, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, Seraphim System, I'm sorry for the ambiguity (I got in the habit of mentally thinking of it as ISGAF instead of the full name). It's the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University. in the Education and Teaching section. Obviously when that prose was originally added she must have been the director, however, without adequate sources to indicate this in the past tense (or at least indicate a time frame), I'm not sure if I should be changing this to past tense with an old archived version of those pages via the original access date or removing the language altogether pending a source that refers to a time period in which she was the director. I am a relatively new editor (I've learned very rapidly), so I am unsure if I am thinking this through correctly hence seeking input to reach some kind of (perhaps temporary) consensus as I don't want to hastily remove this reference to having been the director. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 08:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to the project! And thank you for reaching out for guidance rather than just embracing your first instinct--that's an indicator of a promising new editor in my opinion. Though I will note that RfC's are usually reserved for issues where editors are in disagreement about a given issue and are seeking additional input to break the deadlock. It's not a problem at all that you used it to request information, but you may find in the future that the WP:TEAHOUSE is a faster and more efficient means of getting information on basic editorial inquiries. For that matter, I'll extend to you an invitation to my talk page if you have similar questions in the future; I'm by no means the last word, but I am happy to answer simple queries for a new user who is obviously going out of their way to make sure they are approaching editing in an appropriate matter.

Turning to the issue at hand, this is actually a kind of nuanced case, but one in which I think you would have not been faulted no matter which of the three options (leave as is, update tense, or remove altogether) that you chose. But it makes for a great opportunity to explain some of the nuances of a couple of important editorial policies, so I will try to break it down for you a bit:

As you undoubtedly know at this point, all content must be WP:verified on this project, which is done through sourcing to WP:reliable sources. Here in the present case, there is arguably not a reliable source which verifies that Rentschler was ever the director of the ISGAF--the VCU notice as to one of her talks may have been accepted as reliable for these purposes, but I suspect that it would not be viewed as sufficient if anyone every challenged that fact as a verifiable one. So to that extent, you or anyone else wishing to remove any reference to the director's position could have done so, and the WP:ONUS would have been upon anyone wishing to retain the claim to find a reliable source supporting that assertion.

However, in this instance, you clearly are of the position that Rentschler was the director of the ISGAF, so there is no obligation for you to remove the claim; only challenged statements need to meet the burdens of WP:V, though as a general rule, we try to provide sourcing for any statement, regardless. Once an editor (any editor) makes such a challenge, the requirements of WP:V become pretty ironclad, but if all editors agree to leave un-sourced material in (because, for example, no one doubts the accuracy of the statement), that can be done, and is done (albeit rarely and often with some consternation on the part of the editors doing it).

Presumably, as you say, her McGill University faculty page previously included reference to the directorship in question and said page was considered acceptable as a reliable source for the narrow purposes of verifying that position, by whichever editor(s) included that information. One potential solution is to look for an archived version of said page. But honestly, I think your path of least resistance is either to switch to the past tense. This is a bit of a grey area, because technically we do not have a reliable source saying that she was previously the director of the ISGAF, and we have only a quasi-RS saying she was the director (or more specifically, a source saying that she is the director (present tense), but where said source is quite dated).

I can fully understand why you were thrown by this situation and unsure of how to proceed; even a veteran editor would, in these circumstancesn, be faced with choosing between a set of less than perfect options. All things considered, I think you are safe in converting the statement to the past tense. You seem to have first hand knowledge that Rentschler has resigned from this position, and while first hand knowledge is usually not considered an acceptable form of WP:Verification on this project (see WP:original research) in this instance where we are choosing between these options, I do not think you are likely to face pushback. If anyone did challenge the statement, and they felt the VCU page was not a reliable source, then no mention of the directorship could be made (unless an alternative reliable source could be found to verify it). Likewise, if another editor did think the VCU page was a reliable source (and there was WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to that effect), they might argue that Rentshcler should continue to be mentioned as the director (unless other sources made it clear she was not). But here, where there is presently no dispute and you are just trying to figure out the best way forward with limited sourcing, including webpages with variant content over time, I would go for the switch to the past tense.

Phew, that's an awful lot of breakdown for one trivial short statement, but I felt there was no way to describe the nuances here to a new editor without taking some time. As it is, I'm not surely I demarcated all of the distinct issues perfectly and whether this is more elucidating than confusing for you, but hopefully it was of some help. Feel free to ping me back {{u|Snow Rise}} or drop a note on my talk page if there's anything that needs clarification. And once again, welcome to our community! Snow ^{let's rap} 05:25, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you, Snow Rise, this is exactly the conundrum I found myself in. I've learned the guidelines and nuances enough to have intuited that I was at a frustrating conflict of options (and part of the reason I'm on here is to edit against the inertia of Wikipedia's demographic problems, so I didn't want to hastily diminish the bio of a feminist scholar). I do ask questions at the Teahouse, but it's ironically a mixed bag: links to documentation pages with no guidance, trite condescension, or a clear lack of reading comprehension (or careless reading). Sometimes there's an odd friendly and enthused editor, but you've actually defeated everyone I've interacted with in your friendliness, comprehensiveness, and respectful tone <sarcasm>(it's almost like you understand that the first principle of good writing is knowing your audience and, secondly, purpose).</sarcasm>

I'm going to read through this a few times (as well as review the documentation that you've linked to), then I am going to go with your suggestion of changing it to the past tense. With some more creative searching I may be able to find something that satisfies us, but until I decide to try again this seems like the best solution. Sincerely, Shashi Sushila Murray, (message me) 05:58, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Aww, that's awfully nice of you to say, and I'm always glad to be of help! I'm sorry to hear that the Teahouse hasn't been more useful in your case; it wasn't around when I first started editing here (that I can recall, anyway), so I'm afraid I'm lacking a frame of reference for the process there, beyond having looked in at it on occasion. However, I can recommend some alternative spaces for general questions, though you may be familiar with all or some of them already. WP:HELPDESK is a great catch-all space for inquiries of a technical nature. WP:VPP is an ok alternative for the kind of inquiry you are asking here; it is mostly used for community proposals and other consensus building efforts, but it's fine to ask straightforward questions there as well. The talk pages for relevant policies (and their archives) are also great options for figuring out how to parse specific content issues. There are also topic-specific noticeboards (such as WP:RSN, WP:NPOVN, WP:BLPN, and so on) which are sometimes helpful, though I don't think there is one that would have been particularly on point for your inquiry here.

And honestly, though it's been a while since I've seen someone use the RfC to request outside input before there is a live dispute, I think it's a perfectly legitimate option too, if you are willing to wait for responses. I think people have gotten used to seeing RfC invoked only to settle disputes, and I bet some who are only familiar with it's predominant use in that context might even feel it's frivolous to use it prior to a dispute. But sometimes the issues are so particular to the idiosyncrasies of a given article, it just makes sense to raise them to the relevant talk page, and solicit additional opinions to that page. Anyway, between those various options and the random help of the many decent people I promise you'll meet here, you should have plenty of redundancies on WP:TEAHOUSE. And anyway, the most important tools here to sorting out policy are open-mindedness and a willingness to work within consensus, and you've clearly been devoting yourself to a detailed study of our way of doing things in your short time here, so I'm hopeful your learning curve will be fairly manageable. :) Good meeting you, please feel invited to stop by my talk page if there's ever anything you think could use an extra pair of eyes! Snow ^{let's rap} 08:30, 1 December 2018 (UTC)