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Otherkin

Otherkin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Delete. This article is a long-standing problematic item which is deeply polarizing due to it's lack of factual basis and being primarily sourced upon, among other things, unverifiable sources skewed original research/bollocks based in fan cruft. It is overseen by numerous persons who insist on pushing out factual information or alternative explanations based in reason in favour of their own biased perspectives which bear no brunt of critical scrutiny under their purview. Previously it has been claimed this is an "established belief system", but is at best the outermost extremes of fringe beliefs. The overseeing group is also notoriously uncivil (notably a long standing contributor has been outright banned for introducing various points of bias and non-neutral perspectives to various articles) and it takes no time to see that many of the participants prefer to bully rather then build the content of this article in order to push a specific narrative that suits them best. Attempts to edit the article have been met with much resistance and outright reversion feuds (despite numerous edits over the past year, the article remains much unchanged, even ignoring typical spam or trolling).

Some of the most egregious offences come from the further marginalization of (among others) transgender people through the use of language intended to invoke an association with transgender peoples' struggles or any other sort of actual marginalization. This despicable demonstration of self-marginalization through the use of vulnerable peoples' struggles shows clearly the attitude of people intending upon positioning themselves as a vulnerable class outside the realm of what actually constitutes marginalization to invoke sympathy or special minority privileges that are reserved for those whom are at risk of actual harm for reasons beyond their actual control. Specifically, discussion is also heavily based on fallacy as well as manipulative use of weasel words to maintain this fallacious status quo.

To recap, specific citations:

• Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
• Most sources are forum topics, newsgroup postings, magazine articles, books of non-academic value (with a strong focus on magical thinking), and other highly questionable/disreputable sources, such as:

1. (About self) Lupa (2007). A Field Guide to Otherkin. Immanion Press. pp. 25–26, 50, 52. ISBN 978-1-905713-07-3.
2. (Highly questionable) Michelle Belanger; Father Sebastiaan (2004). The Psychic Vampire Codex: A Manual of Magick and Energy Work. Weiser Books. ISBN 1-57863-321-4. /--/ Some feel that their difference is purely spiritual, while others believe there is a genetic difference between themselves and humanity. /--/
3. (Self-serving and self-published) "The Elven Nation Manifesto.....everyone must read this!!!!". alt.magick. 1995-02-06.

• Article content consists of much magical thinking, backed with aforementioned questionable sources, all presented as a belief system and is thus not considered able to pass muster of being "true":

1. Much of the material is based on individual points of view, such as "Some claim to be able to shapeshift mentally or astrally—meaning that they experience the sense of being in their particular form while not actually changing physically".
2. The very opening is a non-start with "Otherkin are a subculture people who socially identify as partially or entirely non-human".

• Overseers of the page content have a reputation of abuses:

1. Titanium Dragon, banned, had a history of introducing bias into articles through sneaky edits with questionable sources.
2. Jeraphine Gryphon, retired this past month, demonstrated a lack of understanding of the policies as well as conflating transgender marginalization, amounting to self-marginalization by suggested false-associations.

The closest this article should be allowed to remain in existence is for the fact that it may serve as a synonym and forwarder for one or more of many mental illnesses which may cause the symptoms exhibited by the prototypical person mentioned within the article, or those who've shepherded over its counter-productive evolution to the fictionalized state it remains in today.

Tianmang (talk) 20:28, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

• Merge to furry fandom or tag-bomb with relevant cleanup templates, move to draftspace, or rewrite.KATMAKROFAN (talk) 23:24, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
• Keep. Because of the complaints above, I did a few searches for what I expected would reveal better sources than those currently in the article, such as JSTOR and Google Scholar. JSTOR didn't turn up much, but I did find from Nova Religio, a peer-reviewed journal. Google Scholar turned up more hits: published by Brill Publishers, published by Ashgate Publishing, published by Sydney University Press, published by Taylor & Francis. Google News has some other hits, too: from The Village Voice, from Vice, from The Week. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:07, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

A large amount of the language in the article is hinged upon the basis that this is a factually-based system based on some physically-provable (vis a vis transgender-like) or spiritual (of which no solid consensus exists, necessary for any sort of "religious" association, furthermore the first article is paywalled and cannot be properly evaluated) condition; news sources can hardly provide any sort of backing for these types of situations, and those stories cited are sensationalist and opinion-based at the most modest of evaluation with no reference to actual verifiable evidence. Furthermore, there is no biological or even psychological basis (outside of blatant illness) in the citations you have provided, and some of them are duplicates of existing flawed references within the original article. Those which remain (, ) deal with sociological orders of a community based on a common theme, not unlike furry fandom, and is such just noise. This strongly evidences that it is, in fact, part of furry community and should be merged or be made non-existent in the form it currently is in altogether, through either a full on deletion or complete rewrite with no reference to any of the magical thinking that might be a trait merely associated with this subgroup. Tianmang (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Delete. This page is just ridiculous without an equally ridiculous social idiocy backing it. Pyrusca (talk) 02:54, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Please maintain civility. The article is itself flawed, there's no need to make it personal in this manner. Tianmang (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: And the winner of the coveted "Why-Does-This-Have-A-DMOZ-Page" award is... the topic of the article being discussed! KATMAKROFAN (talk) 04:03, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
• Keep: First of all, a bit of disclosure - In addition to being a long-time past editor of the Otherkin article here on Misplaced Pages, I am the owner/administrator of AnOtherWiki, a wiki about the otherkin community, and the current owner/administrator of Otherkin.net. I actually found out about this nomination for deletion in a rather unusual way - a vandal on my wiki going by the name "Nafokramkat, Destroyer of Planet Substub" moved one of the pages there to Articles_for_deletion/Otherkin_(2nd_nomination) tonight. That seemed rather specific, so I took a look over here and found this AfD going on.

The problem with merging this article into the article about furry fandom is very simple: the otherkin community is not part of the furry fandom in any way. Individual members of the otherkin community may also be members of the furry fandom, but equally individual members of the otherkin community may be part of the Star Trek fandom, the Harry Potter fandom, the NASCAR fandom, etc. That does not make the community itself a subset of any of those fandoms. Merging this article into the article on furry fandom would do harm to readers understanding of both the otherkin community and the furry fandom by inaccurately portraying them as one thing. For more on the intersection of the two communities, I would suggest reading the following: 1

As for deleting it, I believe the notability of the subject is easily established. I can cite newspaper articles, magazine articles, academic articles, even documentaries on the subject. In multiple languages, from around the world. User NinjaRobotPirate already listed a few, but there are many more. The truth is, the otherkin community exists. It has existed for 26 years now and shows no sign of disappearing. It has a loosely defined set of beliefs associated with it. Any article about the existence of the community has to mention those beliefs. Doing so is encyclopedic, and is neither unverifiable nor what is meant by WP:BOLLOCKS even if you find the beliefs of the community to be bizarre and you do not personally agree with them. If any article about a community with bizarre beliefs were to be deleted from Misplaced Pages, surely we'd need to delete the articles on Mormonism, Scientology, Heaven's Gate, and many others - no?

Finally, I must object to the biased statement with which you conclude your nomination for deletion: "The closest this article should be allowed to remain in existence is for the fact that it may serve as a synonym and forwarder for one or more of many mental illnesses which may cause the symptoms exhibited by the prototypical person mentioned within the article". You've placed a strong emphasis on reliable sources and verifiability up until now - could you please cite any source which meets those standards in which a mental health professional states that otherkin as a group are suffering from a mental illness? Jarandhel (talk) 08:17, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

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