truly annoying, no, freaking beyond annoying

[kaigou]

I was watching a Taiwanese pop-idol drama (that is very much NOT the usual fare), called Gloomy Salad Days. I'll post more on it later, but the object of my extreme fury right now is Wikipedia. There's an entry for the drama, with episode summaries, cast listing, etc. The drama deals with some pretty intense topics -- teenage pregnancy, same-sex love (both male-male and female-female), even a transgender character. What's important to me is that the transgender character is not just respected by the script -- his wish for a regular, every-person kind of life as the man he is (on the inside) is treated by the script as right, as a valid and worthwhile desire. That's pretty unusual.

...and then you get to the Wikipedia entry. It's not just that it's a jumble in terms of grammar, spelling, and punctuation -- it's clearly an adaptation/translation from a non-English description -- but the real capper is that some asshat decided to use apostrophes around the transgender character's pronouns. As in, 'he' does this, 'he' does that. Maybe it's just me, but after watching the episodes that give the transgender character such respect, and empathize pretty much entirely with his plight, and give voice to his desire for acceptance, friendship, and love (and then give all of that to him!) -- I found the apostrophes to be absolutely and completely offensive, above and beyond violating the very spirit of the storyline itself. It's not an understatement to say I was livid.

So I edited, as I'm wont to do, here and there, when an entry is particularly egregious in re bad writing. I cleaned up the descriptions, made them clearer grammatically per English, adjusted some of the inconsistent anglicization of some of the names (ie, the surname Ah, which when written as simply A is awkward in English)... and then rewrote the episode summaries to remove the apostrophes. If the character is identifying as male, then per English, use "he"; if the point (which I would disagree with strongly, but still grant) is to say it's a female character from the get-go, then freaking use "she". You don't put freaking apostrophes around someone's pronoun unless you're mocking them or intending to imply that the pronoun is false.

This evening, I'm back by Wiki, and I see an odd note about a message. I'll let it speak for itself.

Although everyone is welcome to contribute to Wikipedia, at least one of your recent edits, such as the one you made to Gloomy Salad Days, did not appear to be constructive and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any test edits you would like to make, and read the welcome page to learn more about contributing constructively to this encyclopedia. Thank you. ~ Draksis314 01:39, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Dear Draksis:

Fuck you.

Nolove,
me.

---

see comments for updates -- haven't gone back to the entry myself yet; still working on that calm-down concept.

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

WHAT? No really WHAT? What the FUCK? Who can you complain to?

[kaigou]

I haven't the faintest clue, really. I've always edited here and there, when the grammar or spelling or punctuation is really eye-burning, but this is the first time of getting any kind of a reaction. I haven't an account (wasn't aware I really needed one), and haven't a clue as to the inner workings of who okays or not. I noted changes as always, and thought that the end of it.

What now? I dunno. First I need to get over the fact that I'm seeing red.

[silverfish]

Oh god that makes me so angry, even at one remove. Haven't we learned how not to transfail (or ___fail in general) yet, internet? How fucking difficult is it to treat peoplewith basic decency and respect? Gah.

[kaigou]

The irony is that the series itself treats all its characters -- the young man who's bullied for being too feminine, the physically-female but internally-male young man who falls in love with his best friend's little sister, the best friend who struggles with his kneejerk reaction vs his genuine care for his (transgendered) friend, the girl who falls in love with her (female) best friend, the young woman who's been abandoned by her family, the boy who hides his homosexual desires behind violence, the girl who sells herself and plans to use the money to get her mother out of an abusive marriage -- all of them, without exception, are treated with sympathy, agency, and respect.

To have the wiki entry undermine, even completely reverse that, just makes the fail that much more complete.

[maat_seshat]

Huh. That's a pretty condescending message. *reads again* Really condescending message. Someone needs to make them rewrite their form-paragraphs.

On the bright side, the entry says he, no quote-marks! Maybe someone else bopped this Draksis upside the head?

[kaigou]

I CAN ONLY HOPE.

eta: I don't know how long the message has been there, so I have no idea whether additional things might've happened in the meantime, rendering the message moot. I haven't calmed down enough yet to go look at the entry, to be honest. Best not to do so when I'm this mad, y'know?

[maat_seshat]

I completely sympathize. It's infuriating and discouraging all on its own to see the Wikipedia page undermining the respect of the drama, and then to get a message like that back after editing...

[irrelevant]

Good lord, that's... condescending? Insulting? A thousand other synonyms thereof?

The apostrophes sound like the worst kind of willful ignorance, ugh. D:

[littlebitca]

Dear Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales:

Regarding that urgent plea? No.

[themadpoker]

Augh, that sounds absolutely infuriating. Though I'm now interested in watching Gloomy Salad Days, I've been curious for a bit and knowing it takes such a respectful approach to all its characters is definitely enough to tip me over.

[issenllo]

Thanks for the rec!