Talk:Bell hooks

Content of her ideas

[For 15 months, the following contrib appeared after a misplaced contrib, suggesting that it was a response to the misplaced one. Thus those who recall the following one as part of a discussion should be aware that it actually was the earliest entry on this talk page -- though it could be responding to an earlier edit summary, or to the content the article had at that time.]
--Jerzy•t 09:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
she is herself a reactionary, unable to acknowledge the present realities of the wonderfulness of capitalism
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.134.155.202 (talk • contribs) 04:14, 15 January 2004 (UTC)

---

There's no content here but slogans and book titles. What makes her famous? Does she have a mainstream publisher, an organization she works half- to full-time for, a substantial following verifiable by their membership in an organization she is one of the top 3 people in? Who does more with her ideas than talk about them? What has she done in the last 20 years besides write? Are there ongoing projects that claim she is their primary inspiration, or that they made some concrete change in their work in response specifically to her? Does she live off her book sales? Family money?

Crucially, does she say anything that is verifiably distinguishable from slogans, and if not, are they verifiably rallying anyone? --Jerzy 05:55, 2004 Feb 22 (UTC)

I now note that i erred in thinking i had seen the whole article, when i read (and edited) only the opening graphs and scanned only the (IMO) mislocated book list: my section edit did not expose me to the section (also in need of editing IMO) devoted to one book. I cannot assert that "There's no content here but slogans and book titles", as i've only glanced at that final section; nor do i know whether that section answers the questions i put forth above.

Also, i do now note her co-authorship with Cornel West, which IMO is not decisive but is to me the most encouraging sign that i've noted so far.
--Jerzy 04:30, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)

Jerzy, outside of wikipedia I understand and agree with your concerns. However, I think that wikipedia is not the place to decide if a famous scholar is deservedly famous. For the record, I think that bell hooks is slightly more deservedly famous than most scholars, while I also think that most scholars are more famous than they deserve (I found Ain't I a Woman? articulated many of the points Judith Butler makes in the beginning of Gender Trouble and much of Bodies That Matter, but in an understandable way and coming from experience, not theory).

If your concern is that some rabid bell hooks fan created this page to inflate the reputation of an unknown scholar, I assure you this is not the case and hooks is relatively well known. If your concern is that she is incorrectly well known the best you can do is find criticism of hooks and include it in the article, which I encourage you to do. Hyacinth 23:58, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Hyacinth, and sorry not to have made myself clearer. I agree that the quality of her scholarship is not at issue -- except in the sense that in the absence of other evidence, absence of quality scholarship would be an additional problem. "Talk is cheap", and slogans are even cheaper than scholarship, in the sense that people enunciating slogans that no one listens to are "a dime a dozen", i.e., even less famous than the people who do excellent scholarship that no one cares about (and are about "a dollar a dozen").

As i noted, the association with West makes it more likely that someone cares enough about her (perhaps for her slogans, or better yet, by a little, for her scholarship).

I'm afraid Butler's name means nothing to me, which in a sense is one of the reasons that i edited the Talk rather than considering putting hooks on VfD. I don't mean to claim expertise re this article.

I'm also reassured somewhat by your fairly non-sloganistic defense of her significance, tho i do continue to be concerned (at least as much in terms of the incompleteness of the article, as in terms of how correct its inclusion is) about the silence about the two-decade-wide elephant in the living room:

1. Has she turned down academic appointments bcz she considers academic life some form of sellout (or perhaps just boring to tears)?
2. Or because she gains more money and/or influence thru her publications than she could hope for academic life to provide?
3. Is she unable to get an academic appointment, and if so what are the various views on why?

Reason #1 would make her idiosyncratic but contributes a little to evidence of fame; reason #2 would be significant evidence of fame; reason #3 wouldn't prove non-fame, but (at least in the absence of explanatory details) it is part of a pattern that may or may not, in her case, add up to a failure to overcome the presumption (to which everyone is subject) of non-fame.

--Jerzy 19:18, 2004 Feb 24 (UTC)

Tnx, H., for the credentials. Not the most important thing in the article, but IMO one of the crucial ones. You've made me comfortable with it. [smile]
--Jerzy(t) 19:03, 2004 Feb 25 (UTC)

---

[The following contrib was originally placed at the head rather than the tail of its section, and preceding an (earlier but) undated contrib that may have appeared to have been elicited by the following one. Thus those who recall it as part of a discussion should be aware that it seems to actually be simply an isolated comment.]
--Jerzy•t 09:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
We need give greater discussion of her ideas - her importance in changing (liberal) femisism that largely concerned itself with the concerns of white middle class women, her views on how men are just as important and needed for the feminist struggle as whites were for the civil rights movement,etc,etc--65.30.13.177 06:29, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

Ain't I a Woman

Mnograph moved to Ain't I a Woman?.Hyacinth 05:53, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I just by chance ran across, after having put the matter out of my mind, the edit that H. was presumably referring to: it removed three 'graphs about the monograph (read "book" if you don't care to know the details), with them or their substance being added to Ain't I a Woman?. That page was eventually moved/renamed to what is now Ain't I a Woman? (book), and the change of the bare original lk to

[[Ar'n't I a Woman?|Ain't I a Woman?]]

(in an unsigned edit that i haven't the patience to track down in the history) was apparently someone's unfortunate (tho not necessarily irresponsibly executed) attempt to deal with the effects of, i think, the division of an article: one nominally on Ar'n't I a Woman?, a work of Sojourner Truth, which article, i'm guessing, must have become overwhelmed by material on the work that hooks named after it.
--Jerzy•t 20:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

date of graduation

• In 1973, she graduated Stanford University in 1976,...

Does anyone notice anything wrong here? –Matt 01:03-1:14, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC) Time-stamp on three-edit passage touched up to satisfy my bloody-minded thoroughness in this retrofitting of proper attribution of this talk page. --Jerzy•t 19:20, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Anti-white?

I have yet to find anything in her work that would qualify as anti-white and I have now read four of her books as well as several of her articles. She argues for a more inclusive feminism that recognizes that oppression takes many forms that rarely act indepently of each other. This article needs some serious revision. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parrhesiasts (talk • contribs) 18:43, 23 March 2005 (UTC)

I removed the text. I still wonder, does she spell "'Black' with a capital but spells 'white' in lower-case"? Hyacinth 21:27, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Anti-white, but . . .

Her writings certainly are "anti-white," if by white one means the concept itself of whiteness, and along with that, the divisive, artificial, social construct of race. She is not, however, anti-white PEOPLE. She writes approvingly of many paticular white people, and of many ideas and such expressed by various white people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.164.181 (talk • contribs) 00:56/7, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Anti-white or pro-African American??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.66.200.1 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

currently?

_ _ Gloria Watkins is not on the faculty list at City College. Also, in her book "Teaching Community" she says that she left the university.
_ _ Can this be verified?
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.209.211 (talk • contribs) 22:45, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

bell hooks is currently on the faculty at Berea College in Kentucky as Distinguished Professor in Residence, which lists her in that capacity since 2004. I have updated the page to account for that. She is referred to on that website only as bell hooks, not as Gloria Watkins. I am not sure why she left academia, if that indeed is the case, or if there is any reason that she returned to Berea in particular. What remains unclear is the nature of her role at Berea: She is affiliated with some activities of the Women's Studies Department (e.g. "Monday Night Feminism") but there are no references to any courses being taught presently or previously. Thetwentyninthbather 22:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Buddhism

I would say that very little of bell hooks work makes reference to buddhism except in articles she writes specifically on the topic (e.g. The Shambhala Sun articles I have the wikipedia entry linking to). When she does speak of buddhism it is often about socially engaged buddhism, a term coined by Thich Nhat Hanh (a Zen master she know studies under) but which as a movement has taken on a signifigance far beyond his work alone. I plan to make the change article to mention that it is only some of her work that deals with Buddhism and wanted to give y'all a heads upParrhesiastes — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parrhesiastes (talk • contribs) 17:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

scare quotes

Why are all references to her education in "scare quotes"? She "graduated"? She has a "PhD"? "Dr." Hooks? What the heck is this? Are her academic credentials disputed? -leigh (φθόγγος) 18:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

THey appear to be a hostile introduction by User:71.28.207.253. I have reverted the changes. —Theo (Talk) 14:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

New, and large, revisions

Hey everyone. I am in the process of revising this article. My main goals are:

• Remove bias.
• Clean up existing sections.
• Add new sections to cover her theory.

I hope others can help out.

69.226.209.145 23:02, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome. Hyacinth 04:55, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Casing and her Possessive

Bell hooks->Bell Hooks?

Shouldn't her name be capitalized? Or am I just being picky? --The Human Spellchecker 05:48, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

No, her chosen name is "bell hooks", all lowercase. --Robyn — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.83.250.231 (talk • contribs) 20:47, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

The name (usually just the last name Hooks / hooks) is capitalized at the start of some paragraphs and not others in the article. A common noun is capitalized at the start of a sentence. It seems to me that when a person has deliberately chosen a lowercase typography, that the lowercase should be used throughout but I have zero style-guide quotations to back me up on that idea. Is there a standard for this? Paulc206 02:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the standard is English typography, in which the first word of a sentence, title, or sub-title is always capitalized. E.g.,

Da Vinci (i mean Leonardo da Vinci) is a figure in the back-story of Brown's "Da Vinci Code" novel.

The function of the capital and the period, question mark, or exclamation point, is to clearly demarcate the beginning and ending of every sentence, so that readers effortlessly (and unconsciously, usually) focus on whole sentences, and experience greater comprehension. Whether she chooses to lower-case her name to honor her mother, or to draw undeserved attention to herself, or both, her desire loses to the fundamentals of English (and of every other language i know enough about to have a hint).
--Jerzy•t 16:50, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization

Surely there must be a way to circumvent the technical setup in the wiki so as to render "bell hooks" correctly. Perhaps we could put "Author" or "Social Critic" or "Professor" before the name. --bamjd3d — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bamjd3d (talk • contribs) 17:33, 2 July 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Contrary to the material i am removing :

The title of this article is incorrect because of technical limitations. The correct title is bell hooks.

there is nothing wrong with spelling her name with a capital B in a title, or at the start of a sentence: she can flout the convention of each word of a proper name starting with upper case (and when it doesn't have the stunning impact she presumably seeks, TSK) because that is a loose convention with all sorts of exceptions (even if essentially for prepositions and articles, outside E.E. Cummings's publishers). But she doesn't get to change the rules of English, or the conventions of WP. (Well, she can hack her own copy of MediaWiki, as dKosopedia did, as long as she can pay for her own server.)

However, as Bam suggests, there are plenty of workarounds available that enhance rather than detract from the functions of the article, which include making clear that she wants her name spelled entirely lower-cased. I'm implementing one of them.

--Jerzy·t 2005 July 4 16:11 & 2005 July 4 17:35 (UTC)

I have struck thru my confused impressions that Bam agreed w/ me. The doctoring of the title to achieve that inappropriate casing is such a bad idea that i blindly assumed Bam wanted to change the first word of the article, to get lower case B out of the position of first word of a sentence, where it is ugly, distracting, and stupid. On the other hand, i don't mind if Bam thinks i have hijacked their idea of getting the B away from the head.

--Jerzy·t 2005 July 4 17:35 (UTC)

I have also contradicted what would appear to be a transparent lie (that any upper case is clearly wrong) implicit in the article, by saying

otherwise sympathetic writers sometimes refer to her with the captital B and H

The truth of my statement can be seen in the title, & the bibliography at the end, of what was first in the ext-lks section

--Jerzy·t 2005 July 4 17:35 (UTC)

Sorry about my change that you reverted, I failed to notice the discussion here. Nonetheless, I disagree with your premise. Just like bell hooks, other entities also choose to "flout the convention of each word of a proper name starting with upper case"—for example, id Software and Apple's iBook and iPod. But we place the wrongtitle template on their pages without objection. Why is bell hooks any different? Just because she's a person, while id Software and iBook are corporate trademarks? I think this is precisely the situation for which the wrongtitle template is intended. —Caesura^(t) 05:49, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

_ _ I find that your understanding of the template is supported at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), contrary to my confident expectation.

_ _ (As i think i've already adequately argued, also contrary to common sense. I expected that the "technical restrictions" would refer to the issues discussed at meta:Help:Special characters#ISO-8859-1 Characters as they are in practice applied here, e.g., while there's no reason to pipe bell hooks, Nguyễn gets coded in WP instead as Nguyễn (or for that matter Nguyễn which looks different only when you see the wiki markups, with N and n respectively). My interpretation is that Nguyen should have the template (and that being a person makes no difference), and that the template is misplaced when used on the two trademarks as well, since the capitalization of titles (while enforced by the technical measures) is not a "technical limitation", but conformity with the English rule that sentences and titles of works begin with caps, no exceptions. If i want to discuss de Sade's madness or iPod features, i begin "De Sade's madness is questionable" or "IPod features are numerous", and title the works De Sade's Madness or de Sade's Gladness? and IPod features for New iPodders: there's nothing "incorrect" abt that, and the fact that the technology enforces it is not the reason that the first cap is there.)

_ _ But the intention of the template seems clear, and i was mistaken about it. The fact that i find that intention bone-headed is off-topic on this talk, and i expect, after some mulling, to reduce this discussion (via strike-thru?) to roughly this 'graph and a lk to a more appropriate forum where i shall raise this concern. Thanks for your very correct behavior in this. (The summaries above my "see talk" were distracting, and my failure to lk that phrase didn't help any.)

_ _ I trust you'll forgive my not "fixing the damage i've done", as i prefer in this case to leave it to a supporter of the policy to implement it. Thanks again.
--Jerzy·t 15:37, 2005 July 22 (UTC)

And so I have. - Haunti 01:51, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

_ _ Rereading a year later,

1. Nguyễn gets coded in WP instead as
2. Nguyễn (or for that matter
3. Nguyễn which ....
4. My interpretation is that Nguyen should have the template ....

looks cryptic, and i find it is because of the intervening move of Nguyen to Nguyễn. Then,

1. [[Nguyễn]] was a rd lk (now the article)
2. [[Nguyen|Nguyễn]] and
3. [[nguyen|Nguyễn]] both went directly to the article rather than (as no) via the rdr, and
4. [[Nguyen]] was the article, instead of (as now) a rdr to it.

My impression at this point is that the primary objection to having ễ in the title was that it is not a legal character to appear in literal form in a URL (and must be encoded as %E1%BB%85), so the new URL is not legible at a glance (i expect even by experts), and may have some alienating effect for some users. I think the Zürich debate may have been the turning point about considering such hazards justified by the ability to use the diacritic.
--Jerzy•t 01:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

The illogical thing about people who claim to use lower case to deflect attention from their names is that it has the exact opposite effect of drawing more attention to their name, and they know it, so I find it disingenuous and to be discouraged. I would also like to discourage flashy signature elements on Wikipedia pages, especially on vote pages where all votes should be equal. Hu 00:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

What if someone who has a Wikipedia article suddenly decides that from now on their name can be written only with pink letters on a blue blackground? Or with letters so big that it doesn't fit on the screen? Or that the letter i should be dotted with little flowers or hearts in their name? Will we respect their preferences too? If we write everyone's name the way they do, will we write Julius Caesar as JVLIVS CÆSAR and Mao Tse-tung as 毛澤東? Tutankhamen with hieroglyphs? If the subject of an article was illiterate, we won't write down their name at all? If the artist who was formerly knows as the artist who was formerly known as Prince were still using that unpronouncable symbol as his name, what would we do?

I think this whole lowercasing is cheap attention-seeking. I already corrected this mess in the article Aiko (singer) because it was tiresome to read that aiko this and aiko that; I thought that maybe she is uncomfortable with uppercase because Japanese language doesn't have it or whatever; so it was strange to find the same in the article of an American person. Not to mention that when I was reading the article where she was mentioned, I stopped, wondering what a bell hook is and what has it do with feminism. It is confusing.

My 2 cents on the issue. – Alensha 22:29, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

If you've read any scholarly work within the last maybe 15 years (?) you'll note that the third person pronoun of choice has changed genders. One might find this "attention seeking" but she would recognize, every time she came across the pronoun that there is a certain rationale and deliberacy behind it. (Though I haven't read anything about this, I think that the argument is that, since the choice is arbitrary and the rule has long gone to the male gendered pronoun just as a matter of course, switching the genders is a subtle but significant realignment of a scholar's writings to go contrary to a system where male is the default.) I think its safe to assume that Ms. hooks, an academic, has a similarly convincing reasoning behind her choice. This should be respected. Caesar and Mao don't really bear on the issue because they would write their name in their own language, and we don't seem to be talking about translation. Pink letters on a blue blackground also confuses the issue by taking too strong an extreme and asking to apply it to a much less extreme example. -Terin — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.3.178.151 (talk • contribs) 12:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Category indexing

I'm confused. If the indexing is case-insensitive it wouldn't matter whether or not you capitalize her name, right? If it was case-sensitive then it would matter. Hyacinth 09:52, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

It is case sensitive. So don't put

hooks, bell

in the Cat tags ... unless you want her hidden after the Zs of that category, where most people will never find it and just assume we don't see here as belonging to that Cat.
--Jerzy•t 17:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, H's question seems to be in response to User:Gene Nygaard's 23:15, 8 December 2005 summary (when he upcased both words of her name inside the Cat tags),

This indexing should be case-insensitive, whether or not you capitalize her name.

Clearly he wanted to communicate

I have upcased the names, because we want the result of the Cat's alpha sort to be the same as that of a case-insensitive sort/indexing. That is, we want the title of her article (whether "Bell hooks" or "bell hooks" or "Bell Hooks") to appear listed close to other names beginning "Hoo", and (if there are any) close to people who can be called "B. Hooks". This can be accomplished only by directing the (case-sensitive) sort/indexing to base her position on "Hooks, Bell". If i had left the h she'd have appeared after Z names, and if i'd upcased that but left the b, she would be after anyone else named either "hooks" or "Hooks". (And of course, if i left it "Bell hooks" she'd be at the end of the people (sur-)named "Bell".)

--Jerzy•t 11:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

new grammar edits

I just edited this page to conform with accepted English practice while maintaining as much idiosyncratic spelling as possible, as well as fixing numerous instances of the misused singular possessive. When "bell" or "hooks" began a sentence, that word was captitalized. No individual is so important as to rewrite English grammar on their own whim. All mentions of "hooks'" have been changed to "hooks's", as this is how we spell in English. Also, "Black" and "White" were changed to "black" and "white" as this is also standard English practice.
--B. Phillips 21:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where you learned your "English" but "hooks's" is completely incorrect. "Hooks'" is correct.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.130.232.25 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

"Hooks' may be correct, however that is not the light that the author wishes to be seen in, more importantly, names aside. I believe that it is her work, not her name or the spelling of it that should be addressed. That said, Read any one of her many books with the most open mind that you can garner and one could almost garuntee that you will not be able to shake some of her insight and depth. 3/30/2006 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.200.164.2 (talk • contribs) 21:02/03, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[The preceding contrib is struck thru, clearing an obstruction to navigation. The first sentence starts out on topic, but makes no identifiable point before it not only goes off-topic for this section, but makes clear that the editor has no awareness of WP:NPOV. The contributor has done nothing wrong, of course, and is welcome to try again (with a proper sig).--Jerzy•t 13:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)]

You guys are [off task]. Write the [...] article with correct grammar just like every other article.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.201.247.72 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC) [WP:NPA corrected via paraphrase and deletion per WP:RPA. --Jerzy•t 13:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)]

I totally agree with B. Phillips that, hook's name capitalization preference notwithstanding, first words of English sentences are capitalized, period (pardon the pun). Whether the possessive form for "hooks" should be hooks' or hooks's is a bit stickier. Outside of wikipedia's rules I have seen it written that either form is acceptable depending on how the word sounds after adding an " 's ". Wikipedia's rules for the possessive form, in keeping with this, state: Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with "Achilles' heel" and "Jesus' tears". So, I am changing all instances where hooks' name begins a sentence to be capitalized, but will not change any possessive forms, pending further discussion.
Lawyer2b 17:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I am reversing my opinion. Names should be written as they are, including an initial lower case letter, even at the beginning of sentences. eHarmony chooses to spell its name with a lowercase initial letter and it not capitalized at the beginning of sentences -- neither should hooks'.
Lawyer2b 11:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

_ _ She's being granted the indulgence of her casing of her name being followed in all but one usage, despite the fact that those who cite her works are at least as likely to upper-case both parts.

_ _ Good practice suggests avoiding the occasion for upper-casing a proper name that begins with a lower case, and i've restored (without invesitigating who trashed it) the mechanism for doing that in the lead sentence, for the simple reason that it reduces confusion. (... about what we are saying. It's not the purpose of this article to teach English usage, so there's no need to make sure we use it at least once at the start of a sentence, to demonstrate the prinicipal we apply.)

_ _ If we do have it at the start of a sentence, it must be capitalized. That's how written English works, and while languages change, she and a handful of rock bands don't yet amount to a constituency for change.

_ _ "EHarmony", BTW, if you can't find a syntax for moving it away to where you can help them make their point. "eHarmony" at the start, of course on your own Web site, but you don't get a license to look like an ignoramus in front of our public with your editor's registration.
--Jerzy•t 17:13 & 22:27, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

A Year's History of Name Edits, esp. First Word in Lead Sentence

In the previous section, i describe myself as having already

restored (without investigating ...)

but i'm still about to restore a previous version of the lead sentence, and now have investigated its replacement.

1. For three months (from July of '05) the lead sent opened with my

   The person known variously as bell hooks, Bell Hooks, and Gloria Watkins

   (sustained by a reg'd ed's reversion of one IP's sarcastic vandalism).

2. A then 6-month veteran of WP (now inactive for 7 months) rewrote those words as

   Gloria Watkins ... better known as bell hooks or Bell Hooks

3. For four months that version went undisturbed; i restored "or Bell Hooks" after 6 hours by reverting the first two edits of a new editor (who eventually totaled 12 edits over 32 days).
4. 9 hours later, a new editor (with an arguably similar ID) did their only 15 edits, the first of which included changing to beginning the lead sentence to

   bell hooks (born September 25, 1952), nee Gloria Jean Watkins,...

   (but the edits 4 and then another 16 minutes later, the only ones on WP from that IP, are presumably by the same person).

5. About a month later, User:B. Phillips (as they state in the previous section) upper-cased the first word in sentences and lower-cased Black. About 17 days later, a new IP made their only edit, downcasing two first-word references to her name, including the lead-sentence one.
6. Six days later, a long-term reg'd ed made an edit upcasing "Hooks" (as second word in the lead), and reverted himself in the next minute; 40 hours later, a new IP downcased 6 first-word references, and 15 minutes later made their only other two edits, the msg in the previous section that i struck thru as incoherant whenever on-topic. (I did the strike thru over 12 hours ago, in an edit-screen that i lost, without any thot about whether the contrib had edited the article or not; i reconstructed the strike-thru a few hours ago, before undertaking this investigation to test my hypothesis that the visual awkwardness of having a ref to the pen name start the article was an incitement to "vandalistic advocacy" by random registered and IP editors, in contrast to "The person..." or "Gloria Watkins". The common authorship of the three edits is something i discovered only in the last half hour (the one before reaching this point in the edit).
7. Nine days later, a reg'd ed'r (for the preceding 23 days and 4 edits; they've edited twice more since, each after a month or two without) took the s off one instance of "hooks's".
8. Another 14 days later, an IP with 29 months and 80 edits thru a few days ago downcased 2 first-word refs to her, and unwikified 7 presumably blue lks. (2 of these, after someone restored them and i noted them in the course of an unrelated edit, needed piping away from rdrs that led to dict-defs, but most seem desirable to me.)
9. The next day , an IP's 2nd edit (1st was 44 days earlier to Cornel West, who's lk'd from her article and talk; no further ones since) downcased a first-word ref] to her.
10. Six days later an ed'r reg'd 3 weeks, as their third edit (the last was 4 days later) downcased a first-word ref] to her.
11. Almost 2 months later, about 0600, a 1-month, 10-edit IP does his 11th, on this page. (Eventually, i WP:RNA-edit it.)
12. Almost 12 hours later, L2B, known on this talk page, in two edits upcased 12 first-word refs to her.
13. Not quite 6 hours later, an IP editor newly minted 32 seconds before up-cased her surname as the second word of a sentence, reverts, and does their 4th & final edit at the 1 minute, 38 second mark. ("We await the ruling of the judges as to whether this is a new record for life-time editing rate.")
14. 18 minutes later, the RPA'd ed'r edited the article this time, removing the Lowercase tag & upcasing each of 4 occurences of "Hooks" as a subsequent word in its sentence.
15. About 30 hours later, an editor who's now at 5 months and about 70 edits downcased 5 first-word occurences.
16. 5 days on, an IP w/o previous edits downcased another 5 first-word occurences.
17. 6 minutes later, a user-page-less reg'd user in their 2nd of 4 edits in their 26 hour career downcased another 4 first-word occurences.
18. After 6 days, a 4-month registered user, now at abt 1000 edits, restored the Lowercase tag.
19. The next day , a presently fairly active IP editor (probably not recently sharing the IP; current edit count in middle 3 figures) upcased both words of the lead-sentence name.
20. And the next day, a steady contributor (about 1500 over almost 2 years, with a very public identity, but (still) unseen on talk:Bell hooks) downcased the same two words], with the summary

    rv - the subject is properly spelled in lower-case

21. About 9 days later, a brand-new IP blanked the page, was reverted by AntiVandalBot in under 2 seconds, and settled for radically shortening it; the previous steady contributor rv'd it again after about 2.5 hours. (The IP has so far been seen further only when responding abusively to his vandalism warning.)
22. After 5 days, another brand-new IP upcased both words in the lead-sentence name, and one subsequent-word surname; within an hour, the same steady contributor rv'd
23. In about 2 hours, another brand-new IP up-cased the same two words, and inserted vandalism; L2B removed the vandalism in under an hour, and the steady contrib down-cased 13 hours later, completing the reversion
24. After 12 days, a heavy editor over the last 2.5 years upcased 9 first-word refs, saying

    sentences begin with capital letters, even names that start with miniscule letters

25. 8 days later, another brand-new IP made 4 edits to the article and has since become known on this talk page by starting the

    == New, and large, revisions ==

    section as the last WP contribution of their so-far 74-minute editing career; two of those edits lower-cased the ref in the lead-sentence and her name in the title of (and thus falsified our account of) the Z Magazine article

26. 5 days later a user-page-less reg'd user with a few dozen edits over 1.5 years lower-cased her given name in the first word of the lead-sent, summarizing

    edited bell hooks to conform with (im)proper capitalization

27. 3 days later a reg'd user with about 150 edits over 8 months down-cased a first-word ref to her, summarized

    capitalization change

28. 6 days later i did two section edits, up-casing a first-word ref to her, converting a "hooks's" to "hooks' " and (whoops!) another the reverse (intending to promote consistency, ha!), converting a number of references to her name into pronouns, replacing smart-quotes, and transfering onto the talk page a sentence in need of verification, as explaing on talk, with summaries:
    • rem unverified & disputed sent per Talk:Bell hooks#Intent of her pen name; gr; no smart quotes; "Leftist" wd hv to be proper noun; reduce needlessly monotonous overuse of surnam
    • down-case phrases that name movements that are not formal organizations; consistency re black & hooks'

I was correct in believing that the placement of a form of "bell hooks" at the head of the lead sentence corresponded to a serious acceleration of edits related to its casing, but my first impression is not of the causal link i expected.
--Jerzy•t 00:39, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

And i am forgoing for now returning to that earlier wording of the lead; watch the top-level section that includes this, for my further thots.
--Jerzy•t 09:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Evidence on Casing of Her Name as First Word

There has been a lot of editing disputing how to case her name when. I will be refering to the positions on that, starting with A as the treatment in the first revision to implicitly make its stance clear.

• Position A ("left" end of the spectrum):
  • Implied by User:Montrealais at 08:14, 24 March 2003 by starting the lead sentence

    bell hooks (born 1952) is ...

  • The response of an IP on 3 May 2005 left some amibiguity in its statement of Position A.
  • The first crystal-clear enunciation seems to be the June 2006 one of User:Lawyer2b:

    Names should be written as they are, including an initial lower case letter, even at the beginning of sentences.

• Position B ("center", so far):
  • User:Jiang implied this at 09:43, 6 July 2003 by upcasing from b to B there in the lead, while letting h stand.
  • I was a hair short of explicit when i said

    there is nothing wrong with spelling her name with a capital B in a title, or at the start of a sentence...

  • The first statement to be explicit (in its context, its writer leaves no doubt (despite the passive voice) that they did the editing, and are defending it), is the 6 March 2006 one of User:B. Phillips

  When "bell" or "hooks" began a sentence, that word was captitalized.

• Other positions have been implied, criticizing either her for taking such a name, or us for granting or considering any special treatment for her.

  An IP implied opposing any form of lower casing for her, in April 2005, by upcasing whichever parts of the name appeared, throughout the main section, and removing the title-oriented tag.

  However there has been little hint of exactly which names these advocates would accord the degree of accommodation that is standard for names like da Vinci, an accommodation that i characterized above in implying that

  Da Vinci (I'm speaking of Leonardo da Vinci) is a figure in the back-story of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code".

  is a normal English sentence reflecting the best English typography for the start of a sentence or title. (I don't think this is about grammar; maybe spelling, but more likely typography.)

  Without being sure that non-A, non-B advocates will participate in what ensues, i offer 3 more positions at the "right" end of the spectrum, in hopes that they will serve for such advocates, or induce them to clarify how they differ from these.

  • Position C (near-right)
    • Roughly, respect the casing of a surname or given name only if it has an upper-case letter somewhere in it that is preceded by at most a small number of all-lower-case prefixes (but not when it is the first word in a title, subtitle, or sentence). (C-advocates think "bell hooks" is too silly to acknowledge on its own terms, even if, say, "be-Lo h'Ooks" might be name-like enough to put "Be-Lo h'Ooks says..." at the start of a sentence.)
  • Position D (mid-right)
    • Roughly, respect the casing of a surname or given name only if it has an upper-case letter somewhere in it, that is preceded by at most a small number of familiar all-lower-case prefixes (but not when it is the first word in a title, subtitle, or sentence). ("D'Angelo Barksdale" could have been named "d'Angelo Barksdale", and D-advocates would write dialogue for his crew, like

      D'Angelo Barksdale? Yeah, everbah'y know d'Angelo Barksdale.

    without wincing at anything but my clueless street-talk.

  • Position E (off-right)
    • Roughly, respect the casing of a surname or given name only if it has an upper-case letter somewhere in it, that is preceded by at most a small number of familiar all-lower-case prefixes from a culture the bearer has a real relationship to (but not when it is the first word in a title, subtitle, or sentence). (For an E-advocate, Oscar de la Renta might be OK, "Renta" at least sounds Italian, but Sergei de la Van Khrushchev is presumably doing nothing more than playing with people's heads, and probably deserves being referred to with

      Delavan-Khrushchev's bio was overwhelmingly deleted for n-n and lameness.

This enumeration of positions may help in the arguments i am preparing to make, that while A is not an unheard-of approach to hooks, B is preferred even by some supporters of her.
--Jerzy•t 21:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

User:Jerzy, I just wanted to acknowledge that your chronology and summation of the debate over hooks' name capitalization is impressively detailed, clear, and well done. :-) Lawyer2b 15:29, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Tnx; i'm not sure it was worth the effort, but it may be more useful than it is now when i can make the time to marshal the evidence i intend to, about what is done about her name, rather than what i and others are convinced in our gut really ought to be done.
--Jerzy•t 16:25, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

(In the following:

"The big-words style" refers to a set of popular stylistic rules that all say roughly "In a title or a subtitle, the first and last words are uppercased, as are all nouns, modifiers, long prepostions and pronouns, and verbs, other than forms of 'to be' (and maybe auxiliaries)."

By "the hooks big-words style", i mean hypothetical similar rules that make an exception by lower-casing, in at least some positions, the name "bell hooks" (and presumably some other special-case proper names that i'd be foolish to try to specify).)

By "first and proper style", i mean the popular "beyond any proper names, capitalize only the first word" style-rule.

Examining the external refs of the WP bio article (each directly quoted from it):

1. University of Pennsylvania hooks' article “Postmodern Blackness”

   The site references the ref'd page as follows on its page "African Studies Center -- Bulletin Board, Articles, Papers & Abstracts": Postmodern Blackness [Hooks].

   The ref'd page is titled

   Postmodern Blackness [Bell Hooks]

   A heading, presumably documenting its submission via EMail, reads

   Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 12:35:31 -0700 (PDT) From: "Arthur R. McGee" Subject: Postmodern Blackness (bell hooks)

   The next two headings would seem to be either transcriptions of the author's title and copyright pages, or her functional substitutes for them:

   POSTMODERN BLACKNESS by BELL HOOKS

   Oberlin College Copyright (c) 1990 by bell hooks, all rights reserved _Postmodern Culture_ vol. 1, no. 1 (Sep. 1990).

   Summarizing:

   Hooks apparently followed the usual convention of cover and title-page emphasis via all-caps (and apparently gives the lie to the assertions that she

   seeks to avoid the conventional emphasis on names, and

   intends the name to be written only with lower-case letters).

   The submitter (McGee) used the two lower-cased names.

   U of P both indexed and headed its page without using a leading lower-case letter, and in one case ("[Bell Hooks]") made use of upper-case H in a situation justifiable only by either

   -- construing as applicable something along the lines of the rule of style that says "First and last words of a title (or sub-title) are always capitalized, or

   -- an editorial principle like "We'll reflect bizarre casing submitted to us, to the extent of printing it as we receive it, but that doesn't obligate us to utter the same bizarreness when we say something about what we got."

2. University of Miami hooks biography, interviews, and articles

   Beyond cross-references from pages that are part of the same collection of seven (each concerning a "major thinker in contemporary educational thought") the site references the ref'd page on a "Home Page" for the seven, with a lk labeled "Bell Hooks".

   A similar page on the site lks to has broken lks to 17 presumably similar pages. (Seven of these are for the same seven thinkers.) This is apparently a related and earlier version:

   as to relatedness, there is common wording, including the redundant "an effort to try to provide";

   as to order:

   • all 17 lks are now broken;
   • it appears less edited (a misspelled course name; the cut-and-paste-like garble (emphasis added) "atht econclusion" for "at the conclusion"; punctuation typos);
   • it has less polished formating;
   • it describes of the de novo production of the collection)

   It has lks labeled with names, including the same 7 -- but the "bell hooks" lk is labeled in lower case.

   As to the referenced page:

   It uses "Bell Hooks" in both the heading and (as do the other 6 pages) in the bank of lks;

   It comprises:

   • A biographical section of six 'graphs, which

     uses "bell hooks" in the first and "hooks" (or "hooks/Watson's") once in each of the rest. (Three of these start paragraphs.)

   • A poorly defined section of a transitional sentence, the 3 external-lks it segues into, and a recommendation of starting with a book -- which is asterisk linked to bibliographic entry in the succeeding section, with

     each of those five items using a form of ther name, lower-cased;

     -- one follows the style of McGee's in citing "Postmodern Blackness";

     -- two do so as subsequent words of sentences;

     -- one does at the start of a title, and

     -- one does within a title that upper-cases nearly every other word.

     (However, the last of these is no longer a valid lk to such an article, but redirects to the top of the site; the title given suggests the reference was to "the Shambhala Sun magazine" interview with Pema Chödrön, which -- at least on that Web page -- is headed "Pema Chödrön & bell hooks talk over life and all its problems" (in accordance with a popular "capitalize only the first word and proper names" style-rule rather than the cited "Pema Chödrön & bell hooks Talk Over Life and All Its Problems", which suggests a "hooks big-words style".)

   • Three media-/biblio-graphic sections, each with a heading and (unless they reflect more than one style among the three headings) formatted according to a "hooks big-words style".

     Two of these headings include "bell hooks". These also correspond to the books, and the titles use "first and proper style"; entries for hooks's works cite her name as "Hooks, Bell", and her name begins one title: "Bell Hooks' engaged pedagogy : a transgressive education for critical consciousness", which is "first and proper". These repeatedly imply simply treating "Bell Hooks" as her name, and "bell hooks" as not her name, but at most a peculiarity of her and some other authors' style in writing her name.

     The last section does differ; the Home pages hint at why:

     both say

     [The thinker pages linked] include... detailed bibliographies of their [book] works. When available media sources are listed as well.

     The early "Home" says

     The bibliographies were created in most instance [sic] by online searches through the Library of Congress.

     while the later one omits "in most instance". This suggests that the instance(s) where a student working on one thinker's page didn't use LoC were later standardized to LoC, and that the same may not be the case for "media", e.g. the hooks video. In the two strict-sense bibliographical sections, we are told we are seeing LoC entries; in the case of "bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation", we can see on the cover (BTW, this time belying at least her enforcing on her publisher the de-emphasis of her name)

     bell hooks

     CULTURAL CRITICISM

     & TRANSFORMATION

     Ignoring the garbage lk provided to its publisher in favor of bell hooks: Cultural Criticism & Transformation, it is unclear whether that is the title or a block of text from the promotional layout, as

     Cultural Criticism & Transformation

     with bell hooks

     invites believing.

   That leaves 7 more lks to be explored for evidence, and let me share with you that it's nowhere near as fun as dogmatic declarations about how such things have to be done, and far more time consuming. Perhaps others will contribute some research. I will proceed with this only slowly.
   --Jerzy•t 08:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
   

Criticism section

This section alone is too long for the talk page.

Its former content is now at Talk:Bell hooks/Criticism section.

commencement speech

I have adjusted this section according to the comments above. Again, I don't think we need such a section at all, since I don't think the speech is all that notable, but if we are going to post it here, we should post various views on it. The claim of frontpage that she was attacking her audience is false, according to the Austin Chronicle, and her comments should be set in the proper context, as the quotes I added attempt to do. I renamed the section since none of this really criticizes her ideas; it just suggests that she made a speech that was not well-received. I think a separate criticism section that actually addresses her ideas would be nice here.--csloat 00:05, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you are on as shaky ground as insisting Frontpage that rag is patently unreliable when you confidently assert the Chronicle article clearly contradicts Frontpage's description of Hooks' behavior. The Chronicle article's ameliorating description stops short of saying Hooks didn’t attacked the audience at all; it just says she didn't call them something derogatory. But rather than making the focus be whether hooks did or did not attack the audience, which I think is missing the point, let us focus on why the speech was controversial. Among the things that are notable is that the audience felt attacked, which even the Chronicle article supports, as evidenced by the audience member's letter to the newspaper and the article's direct quote from a professor who actually offers an explanation as to why the audience felt that way. Lawyer2b 05:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The description from the Chronicle contextualizes hooks' comments as something other than blatant attacks on the audience (feel free to read the description yourself). Again, I don't think any of this is notable at all, but if we are going to note it, Frontpage's incredibly one-dimensional "summary" of the speech should not be the sole representation of it. Let's get real - I want to see actual criticism of hooks' ideas here, not the non-notable information that an audience once booed her at a speech. Get it?--csloat 08:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

As previously noted, I disagree with the idea that the speech's controversy isn't notable but I'm in complete agreement that Frontpage's comments should not be the only representation of it. I think you "went overboard" with the amount of sympathetic reviews but recognize your intent to balance. Lawyer2b 20:51, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

What amound of sympathetic reviews are you talking about? The only thing I put in there that could be perceived as sympathetic is the quote from the Reverend. I don't see any evidence that this speech is notable other than sputtering smears from fring sources. A sentence or two is more than is necessary, but if you insist on presenting quotes from the likes of Glazov, we're going to need to contextualize it with comments from others.-csloat 00:25, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Potentially valuable material that needs verification

All information in WP articles must be verifiable (and, BTW, as the "living" version of {{WPBiography}} at the top of this talk page states, this is especially urgent, even on the talk page, in cases of negative assertions about living and thus libelable people). At this point i'm using this section (but you can't assume others who use it will do the same) for two situations:

1. statements that have been contradicted (including replacement with something that is consistent, even tho each asserts something the other doesn't)
2. statements whose verifiablity is unlikely, because what is asserted either is rarely documented when true, or is so ambiguous that the content of any verification will probably support a more valuable assertion.

In cases of either situation, work is needed. IMO, the level of attention given, in the article's editing, to getting attention for editors' PoVs on her (or to making naming-magic more powerful) implies that if good information is temporarily obscured, that will be compensated by speeding net improvement of the article.

Intent of her pen name

_ _ I've removed all reference to who she named herself after and why she downcases it, since all of this came into the article in multiple different accounts and without reason, let alone verifiable reason, being given. IMO such info will improve the article, when we have something verifiable to put in.
_ _ User:AntonioMartin's original wording which reads

She uses the name bell hooks to honor her mother and her grandmother.

(lightly modified at least by me) was removed and ultimately the topic came to be covered by

The name is that of her maternal grandmother; hooks writes that it is spelled in lower-case letters to emphasize that the content of her work is more important than her name.

In fact, as i was surprised to stumble onto, at least one other revision (which i've lost track of) says Bell Hooks was her

great-grandmother

It's possible that one (or all) of these is someone's misremembering of something verifiable, or (since they are not clearly inconsistent) that all of them have a verifiable basis, in which case what we need to state is the various versions she has asserted, since we are unlikely to find definitive facts beyond the fact that she said one or more things.
_ _ (In case someone is diligent enough to trace thru the full history of the article's treatment of the intent of her pen name, my edit changing from stating her purpose to stating her account of it is based on no reference: it should be obvious that knowing intent is never possible for anyone but the intender, so that a statement about another's intent is either a sloppy account about what the other said, or an unverifiable opinion. Either she said it, or Antonio has made a fool of me; i have no better source, and it would be appropriate for someone concerned about covering this aspect to seek one, since Antonio probably didn't just make it up.)
--Jerzy•t 21:49, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
The phrase

in order to put the emphasis on her writing rather than her name.

was added (by a two-edit, no-user-page registered user) without summary or talk-page comment; that editor did not remove

to honor her mother and her grandmother.

--Jerzy•t 12:41, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

A reconsideration.

I have reconsidered my position. I now agree that certain criticisms should be removed because a decent case cannot be made that they are held by any more than a "tiny minority". While I still think Frontpage and Accuracy in Academia are legitimate sources, (as legitimate as Media Matters, et. al.) without any other citable sources backing their opinions, they should not be represented in the article, per WP:BLP. Lawyer2b

I applaud your decision and I appreciate your willingness to reconsider your position on this. I still think there should be a criticism section, but I think it should focus on actual criticism of her scholarship rather than smears from such sources. I like what you did with the commencement speech portion (though I don't think we can say with accuracy how anyone "felt" about hooks' speech; it might be better to put the word in quotes if it is used in the chronicle article).--csloat 15:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. The point of your argument was driven home when I found myself taking your position in a debate I'm having over at the Protest Warrior talk page. I hate hypocrisy and am always on the lookout for it in myself and others. You have a point about the accuracy of saying someone "felt" a certain way about the speech; feel free to improve it as you see fit. :-) Lawyer2b 16:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

No, not someone. An audience. And they didn't feel that way. All of these comments have been sourced, per discussion on the page. They belong as substantative relevant criticism. A debate about this should continue. -Kmaguir1 06:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Please feel free to add to the discussion. But do not make changes that have been deemed unacceptable until you have created a new consensus in the discussion. As it is, this debate was settled a week ago - if you have new information to add, please do so here. Thanks.--csloat 06:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

No, it was not "settled", because I was not "participating", and I am not "settled" about this article. I did put new information to add here--that I was going to be reverting. And I don't have to do that. -Kmaguir1 07:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Apology for uninformed edit

I changed the H to h in Dr hooks' name in three places in this article without reading the Talk: page. These were:
Line 13:
Career
H/hooks began her teaching...
Line 19:
...a notable leftist political thinker and cultural critic. H/hooks tries to reach a broad...
Line 30:
Influences
H/hooks' work is influenced by a variety of people...
I aplogise for this, and have changed them back.Shirt58 10:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

"... uniformed edit"? Crikey, it must be because I'm still wearing my Field hockey uninform sic from the game v Valleys this afternoon. 1-all draw, btw. Shirt58 10:18, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for editing, in or out of uniform, instead of waiting around forever until you were sure you were entirely informed, and maybe forgetting about the whole thing. Incompletely informed editing is WP's lifeblood, and even completely uninformed editing is something is something where we've gotten good at rolling with the punches. I hope you keep on editing, and if your teammate (or opponent, i wasn't clear about that) Mr. Crike would like to come and edit as well, please bring him along, informed, uniformed, whatever.
--Jerzy•t 00:59, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Silly "criticism"

User:Kmaguir1 has just gotten off a ten day block for using sockpuppets to try to add pseudo-criticism sections to the articles on Judith Butler and Michel Foucault which were very similar in quality to the "criticism" he has tried to insert here: i.e. ad hominem and unrelated to the thinker's reasons for notability. I have not worked on this article, but I'd certainly warn vigilance against such insertions.

However, in part motivated by Kmaguir1's recent disruptions—but also by numerous similar ones on other academic biographies in the past—I have begun work on an essay called Wikipedia:Academic and artistic biographies that tries to clarify some of the concerns, and pitfalls, that these biographies wind up raising. So far it is only an essay, and not even a "finished" one. But if it develops well (please help), I reckon I'll propose it as a guideline later. We'll see: I've gotten some good input, but need some more before I feel like the essay/guideline is "ready". LotLE×talk 07:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, notability is not just within a field, but within the press at large. And this is the most she's been covered in the media at large, it is notable, it's about her, the things she says speak for themselves, and so, let people read what she says. -Kmaguir1 07:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

A few thoughts for Kmaguir1: Criticism sections are heavily discouraged. Negative and positive should be reported together to keep things in context. Also, especially in biographies, negative statements must be written neutrally and above all, must be sourced. You simply cannot dump an entirely negative section into the article and provide a biased source which doesn't even cover most of the material added and expect it to stand.

That said, I did notice that the article only has one piece of negative information, the lecture she was booed at. There doesn't seem to be a pro hooks slant to the piece; the sections have been worded in a very factual manner (just like its supposed to be :) ). However, I know that she receives a large amount of negative press - her work is definately eye-catching. It would appear that the dissenting views may need a bit more representation - so long as its done in a neutral, factual, sourced manner. Shell ^babelfish 08:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shell Kinney (talk • contribs) 08:45, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I would prefer to see criticism from people who have actually read her work and deal with its substance than the kind of criticism that Kmaguir keeps putting in from non-academic sources with an obvious agenda who seem only to be reacting to her personality or her "leftism." There are plenty of real academics who are critical of hooks' work.--csloat 14:23, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

See my examples on Lulu's standard talk page--I want to see scholarly criticism, as well. I won't excise that from this article. But you shouldn't excise this. There's no justification. It's been multiply sourced here, on the talk page, and whatever bias you attribute to the source is not such that it justifies belief that the things actually didn't happen--we all believe the things I included in the paragraph, that they happened. -Kmaguir1 20:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

See my responses to your stuff on that page. This has been excised because it is a bunch of unexplained rumors. The commencement speech booing is already mentioned on the page, we don't need it twice. The other stuff should be sourced to hooks directly and any criticism explained. Out of context partial quotes and summaries are bogus. The Austin Chronicle article, in fact, specifically says that she did not say what your edit claims that she did. As I said on the other page, if you are not willing to read the author, you have no business being so insistent about putting so-called "criticism" on her bio page.--csloat 21:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

We do not all believe "the things" you included in "the paragraph" you wrote and recently reinserted, that they happened. My objection is not to the things, nor to their inclusion, but rather to your assertion that what you have written is a paragraph. The two sentences I've placed below could each evolve into a responsible paragraph. If you create one, I will be pleasantly surprised.--Anthony Krupp 07:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Removal of U of Miami lk

_ _ This appears to have a good biblio (IMO not copyright protected). It also has 4 lks outside the U, all garbage and one (re tape) to irrelevant ads, in large part paid ones and probably all paid, including "Non-profit Oyster" which invites the inference that it is a non-profit, but does not say it in terms that could straightforwardly be prosecuted for fraud if false.
_ _ Perhaps a persistent editor can get the U of Miami page fixed, or use its info other than lks to create something better here.
--Jerzy•t 08:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Casing yet again

I read though the prior discussion of casing, which has grown inconsistent again. What I believe is the prior consensus—and what I also believe is correct—is to use hooks' preferred lowercasing as the rule, but to still follow English orthographic conventions about word-initial capitalization. This rule is completely consistent with other non-upper names such as "da Vinci" and "van Rossum", which likewise become upper-cased in sentence-initial position ("Da Vinci was an artist..."; "Van Rossum created the Python programming language..."). LotLE×talk 21:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Kmaguir1's improvement-free criticism section (of 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 Aug so far)

Here:

She has written: "Blacks who lack a proper killing rage ... are merely victims." She also wrote an essay about a sociology professor who dreams about murdering an anonymous Caucasian on an airplane. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Ok. Neither sentence amounts to criticism. Why was it in a criticism section? I do not object to their inclusion in the article if they are embedded in a relevant paragraph and placed in an appropriate section of the article.--Anthony Krupp 07:03, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

P.S. On source 4: is a letter to the editor of sufficient note to include it in a biography? Do the wikipedia guidelines on biographies of living persons preclude including a source like this? Thanks to anyone for clarifying either question.--Anthony Krupp 07:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Until those comments are sourced from hooks herself, I am not sure why we need them here. The Austin Chronicle article talks about the commencement speech; the quote comes from Andrew Jones' anti-intellectual screed against "radicalism" at UCLA and the comment about her essay comes from "Accuracy in Academia." Andrew Jones alienated even the far right with his Orwellian attack on UCLA professors, and spying on their classes and distorting every word they say is a trick he learned from Reed Irvine who founded Accuracy in Academia. Whether or not hooks said these things, we don't need them quoted here out of context from McCarthyites who have as their mission to filter the words of academics in order to support character assassinations. If we want to put those quotes in there, or something like it, by all means let's have someone actually read the essay and quote it in context rather than summarizing a quote from someone who makes it a point to take her words out of context and portray them in the worst possible light.--csloat 07:12, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

A letter to the editor is certainly not a reliable source, by a longshot. The others are partisan, but probably not quite "extremist" in the sense of WP:RS. Btw. I think I figured out what I've done wrong in my last couple superfluous pseudo-reverts. I was looking at Kmaguir1's contribution history, and getting confused that I was looking at the article contribution history. Sloppy Lulu... LotLE×talk 07:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the AIA and Jones sources are "extremist" in the sense of the NeoNazi party or something, but my point is not that they are "extreme" -- my point is that their mission is character assassination. You want a sentence that says people like these are critical or this or that in hooks, that's fine, but we simply cannot take their summaries of her work as a reliable source for what she has to say. Especially when we actually have her work to refer to directly if we are confused about what she has to say. So perhaps a quote from Andrew's blog is notable (though I doubt it) if it is a quote from Andrew, but not if it is portrayed as a quote from hooks.--csloat 07:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, of course. All those Horowitz and Reed affiliated slander groups are quite poor source, just not "extremist" in the specific WP:RS sense. Such sources definitely must be used extremely cautiously, and only if supported independently, and especially only if the notability of a given topic is established without reference to those sources. LotLE×talk 07:56, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Question: if/when Kmaguir1 next inserts the same "paragraph," for which he is failing to get consensus, what would be an appropriate action? To just delete it? Pragmatically, that would suffice to improve the article. But when a user consistently ignores WP:CONSENSUS, is that grounds for a block, or some other consequence? Just wondering. Thanks for any illumination.--Anthony Krupp 07:39, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Their are conduct-related WP:RfC's for extreme situations, but I don't think this is one, at least not yet. Judging by his behavior on the Foucault and Butler pages, he's willing to back off when he has been shown wrong over and over again. At least so far - who knows what else he might have planned, for this page or those.--csloat 07:44, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Does someone want to start a section on her works? I'd suggest between the current sections two and three.--Anthony Krupp 07:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Kmaguir1 claims: Still no consensus reached

There still has been no consensus reached on this page, and so I am reinserting the Criticism paragraph, but I agree with what someone mentioned earlier of the word itself "Criticism" being difficult, because the things inside the paragraph do not necessarily themselves represent 'criticism'. So I have instead, taking advice from this, decided to title it "Popular Controversy", which I think should cover it. I am not attached to that title--I'd like to have a debate over that issue. -Kmaguir1 02:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You are failing to get consensus for your paragraph. That's a good sign you shouldn't keep inserting it day after day. In particular, you are ignoring discussion above, esp. on the redundancy of the first third of your text.--Anthony Krupp 02:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It might be getting close to user-conduct RfC time. Perhaps documenting these diffs on WP:ANI is a better first start. Perhaps a kindly admin would like to give him a good swift kick in the pants, and conceivably that would sink in. It's pretty clear that Kmaguir1 is going to earn himself a much longer term block that his 10 days before too long... it's just a question of how to minimize our troubles the meanwhile. LotLE×talk 17:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I can always run to an admin about you too. All I do on here is edit, and edit well. If no one engages me, that's not my fault.-Kmaguir1 18:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I dispute the second and third sentences.--Anthony Krupp 18:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

What do you dispute about the second and third sentences?-Kmaguir1 20:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

That you edit well, and that it is not your fault.--Anthony Krupp 21:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that...well, we're not at an impasse yet. I asked you for possible solutions to get sentence three and four of the controversy section onto the page with some degree of consensus, and you haven't provided anything. So I'm here listening. As long as we're talking, you needn't worry about reverts--as long as we're talking.-Kmaguir1 21:18, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I asked you quite a while ago to make meaningful paragraphs out of two of the sentences you keep reinserting. As soon as you do so, I'll be glad to comment on them and help revise. Just as I've done on the JB page. Your failure to alter your text = stopping conversation.--Anthony Krupp 21:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No, no. The sentences contain meaning. You want them to mean more--so you either write the longer paragraphs, or advise me how the sentences there can develop a meaning that is more condusive for the page's future. The meaning behind sentences three and four, to me, is basically, [removed as per WP:BLP] See diff If you want to elaborate on that meaning by fleshing that statement out so it is more clear to more people that she's [removed as per WP:BLP] See diff , that's fine. But the meaning is there anyway, because of the nature of the things she said and she did. There's, as I see it, two big differences here between you and csloat, lulu and the rest. You want it to be more developed, more intricate, and they think, apparently, it's not well-sourced, or that the sources are biased, a sentiment which I disputed in that no one could dispute that these things were actually said or written by Miss hooks. That's what it comes down to--do you doubt the veracity of the sentences, or do you not think they survive on their own well?-Kmaguir1 21:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The sentences provide no context. That's why I've repeatedly asked you to give some context. Since you insist on adding the sentences, you can be expected to provide this context. In the case of Nussbaum a while ago, you provided a link to Nussbaum's text, such that I was able to read it and provide the context you were unwilling or unable to provide. In this case, I don't have a link, so can't do that for you.--Anthony Krupp 23:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Because I haven't done anything against Wikipedia in reverting on this page. As long as we're talking, we're in good shape to make consensus. You abandon consensus when the conversation stops.-Kmaguir1 21:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Not violating 3RR is not the same as not violating consensus.--Anthony Krupp 21:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Everyone has engaged you Maguire. You are the one not engaging the arguments here.--csloat 18:53, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Abandonment of Consensus (happened a while back)

Abandonment of consensus has occured, and users are no longer working to obtain consensus with me, and instead are filing pointless RFC requests for intervention, calling me satan, and the like. So edits on bell hooks will continue, within Wikipedia guidelines and policies.-Kmaguir1 23:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

We've been trying to get you to engage the discussion Maguire but you consistently refuse to.--csloat 23:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

No, you filed an rfc with no attempt at arbitration--just, literally, arbitrarily.-Kmaguir1 23:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There are attempts to discuss this all over this page, and all over your user page. If you want to discuss this, please do so. Anything about the RfC that needs to be discussed can be discussed over there. Thanks.csloat 23:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

To Kmaguir1's credit, I am sitting here reading the line that says bell hooks desired to murder an anonymous white male. It is there, in a book she herself wrote, unless he or I are completely mistaken about the author. Shazbot85^Talk 03:21, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Nobody suggested the line was not there. The problem was that it was taken out of context and quoted from a different author whose entire goal was character assassination. It would be as if all the George W Bush quotes on the Bush bio came from Noam Chomsky or Fidel Castro. The quotes may be accurate, but there is clearly an agenda at work in picking what to quote and what not to quote. I much prefer (as does everyone else here, apparently) if quotes from an author actually come from that author rather than their sworn enemy. Now that we have the actual quote, the next issue is whether it is a notable quote. If it is notable, what is it notable for? Maguire insists that it is a "popular controversy." I'm not aware of what is popular or controversial about it. Magquire tells us that Horowitz is angry because of that quote. I don't see how that is notable. Horowitz is critical of all liberal professors. Simply reading the quote does not make evident what the criticism is of her or among whom it is popular. Finally, I think everyone has a problem with the fact that Maguire seems to have trouble putting these thoughts into coherent sentences. A section like the one he most recently added was justly deleted in my mind not just for POV reasons but for simple grammatical and semantic reasons.--csloat 04:57, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I Did What You Wanted Me to Do

Hey, listen up. I went out, and I went and got the stupid Marxist book, and I found the line. And more to boot. I did what you wanted, I put it in context, and then who deletes it? Lulu. I am really at the entire of the line with her, and will take necessary action such as an rfc, or simply starting up a conversation on the administrators dialogue. She could not have been familiar with the anthony krupp, csloat, kmaguir1 consensus of providing the original source (hooks' book) and putting it in context. I am most displeased here. There will have to be accountability for this.-Kmaguir1 04:34, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion in the article.

The source in question is verifiable. Whether the manner in which is was included is in agreement with consensus is up for debate, but I think the information should be included. hooks really did write that, and it is published. How can we include this in the article is what I would like to come to a consensus on. Shazbot85^Talk 04:53, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced it is notable, but if we want to include it somewhere, how about in a summary of her written works? It is reasonable to have a list of works with brief summaries, and I see no reason that a summary of that work (along with any evidence of "popular controversy" arising from it) couldn't be included in such a section. I would continue to object to its inclusion, however, in a section implying that a quote from her work is a criticism of it. I would also object to its inclusion in a paragraph that reads as if it were translated from Italian into English by someone who only speaks Arabic. --csloat 05:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)