MIS in Wikipedia

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Steve 1
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Post by Steve 1 »

To submit comment -

Hit the "edit" link to the right of the title "Men in skirts". It will display your IP number as a temporary username. Otherwise, you can register and create a proper username, then do the same thing.

But please read the comments there, and only add good arguments to the pile. For instance, the user who wrote "Nuke this crap on sight" is completely useless.
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crfriend
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The thin edge

Post by crfriend »

Steve 1 wrote:Deletion review initiated. [..]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... _in_skirts [...]We have 5 days to debate it and make our votes count.
From what I've been reading on Wikipedia's site, "votes" don't count much; it's the validity of the argument (in it's purest meaning, mind you) that counts. That actually gives positive reinforcement to any esteem I might have in them.

From what I've seen so far, JzG's argument (and he looks Turing complete, which may negate my original comment on the matter) the idea is already covered at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_and_dress#Male_wear

That short paragraph sells the notion short, of course, but I suspect that's where "we" need to put the "thin edge of the wedge" in.

Take for instance: "Outside of ethnic communities, skirts, dresses and similar garments are still considered primarily women's clothing in the Western world and the wearing of them by men in these areas is generally restricted to cross-dressing[..]"

The original author makes two blunders. One is historical ("still considered"), and one is factual -- skirted garments on males are perfectly normal in several cultures, notably the southern Pacific ones and the Arabic world. Why wasn't this one slated for deletion?

In any event, I suspect this is where the wedge needs to be placed, and I suspect that a very subtle edit to the mentioned article of "There was a brief vogue for male skirts during the late 1990s, with Tom Cruise and David Beckham attracting some comment for wearing them, and this trend continues into the 21st century as a fashion subculture." might be put it in. Place the appropriate link accordingly.
Steve1 wrote: Note that anonymous visitors advancing no argument, or foolish arguments, will be ignored per Wikipedia standard practice. Please make good arguments!
Given the feedback already there, group-think has set in and will damn the article to perpetual "protected" deletion. Better to sidestep the problem and inject the idea as a "subculture" one (which, face it, any bloke that wears anything other than tr*users in "western culture" is a part of) than try to stand up to preconceived notions and prejudices.
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Steve 1
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Post by Steve 1 »

CR, the "undue weight" defence is probably rubbish. Anything that is "notable" can be given its own article, even if it isn't very well known.
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crfriend
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"Undue weight"

Post by crfriend »

Steve 1 wrote:CR, the "undue weight" defence is probably rubbish. Anything that is "notable" can be given its own article, even if it isn't very well known.
I'll second that sentiment, and agree that from outward appearances the article was expunged as an "idontlikeit" motion. It's humourous to note that JzG's demeanour is getting more shrill by the comment.

Wikipedia should watch it with the notion of "undue weight"; they're trying to be a global resource, and if one looks at lots of things from a global perspective a good deal of what goes on in the West carries "undue weight" when compared to the vastly larger populations in Asia.

I'm not sure what "notable" constitutes, but "MIS" (does it really exist as a "movement"?) is well below the RADAR of most folk and may be viewed as offensive by a minority of the insecure. There are a few small firms that manufacture skirted garments for men, and those were called out by way of example in the article, as were the various designers who have shown (if not terribly seriously) mens' skirted garb, so, yes, perhaps this does count as "notable", if only in passing.
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AMM
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Men-in-Skirts Subcultures

Post by AMM »

crfriend wrote: ... Better to ... inject the idea as a "subculture" one (which, face it, any bloke that wears anything other than tr*users in "western culture" is a part of) than try to stand up to preconceived notions and prejudices.
I am familiar with one "subculture" in the USA where men in skirts is pretty much accepted: the Contra-dancing subculture. I have mentioned it here a few times, with zero response, but it is not only accepted there, but the acceptance is documented:

1. Most of the major festivals which have a substantial contra dancing content -- NEFFA, NOMAD, Dance Flurry, Brattleboro Dawn Dance, to the name the ones I have been to -- have a substantial minority (say 20-50) men wearing skirts. For instance, at the Saturday evening English dance session at the Dance Flurry, I would guess that 5-10% of the men were wearing skirts. (The percentage was higher at the contra events.)

2. A number of regular (weekly or monthly) dances have a similar percentage of men in skirts, usually the younger men.

3. The man NYC group has had a Men In Skirts evening (where most men wore skirts) at least 2 years in a row. Some other groups in the area have had them as well, though I don't think they're yet getting to be an annual event.

4. Several contra-dance groups' websites refer to men wearing skirts.

In no case is it the majority of the men, but it seems to be a widely accepted dress option. Note that this is men in skirts and not "orthodox" crossdressing. (I have seen one or two apparent transsexuals, but they are an extremely tiny minority.)

By the way, this fashion freedom is a sharp contrast to square-dancing -- I don't go to square dance festivals as such, such as "hoedowns" (I do go to places where square dancing is done, but only when they're open to non-square-dancers), but I understand that there's still a pretty strict dress code. Supposedly, they've only recently allowed women to wear ankle-length skirts (regulation length is a little below the knees.)

Another place where skirts are accepted is Rainbow Festivals (and Renaissance Festivals?). I'll leave it to Butterfly Bill to talk about that, since I've never attended one.

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Charlie
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Post by Charlie »

AMM wrote:I am familiar with one "subculture" in the USA where men in skirts is pretty much accepted: the Contra-dancing subculture. I have mentioned it here a few times, with zero response, but it is not only accepted there, but the acceptance is documented.
I'm planning to go to a 'Zesty contradance weekend' at Halsway Manor in November. I always dance contra (and folk dance in general) in a kilt but am tempted to try a skirt. One of the local contra callers has come back from the US with a story of dancing with a man in a skirt, so it's not entirely unknown in England.

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Post by binx »

It would appear that the topic of Pantyhose for Men contains many references that are periodicals, with as many links to sites that discuss it. If the articles about contra-dancing in skirts and about goths who wear skirts to concerts were added, perhaps that part of the debate would be resolved.

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Post by ziggy_encaoua »

By the way the MIS page still exists on wiki mirror site

http://www.answers.com/topic/men-in-skirts
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Post by binx »

In a previous post...So Steve puts up a pretty good argument in the deletion debate. Thank goodness MSM article was restored. There's another piece of reference. Hey! I just checked and the page has returned through a reversal, but it's still under threat of deletion...There's 14 references, how many are needed to resolve that dispute?? I'd submit that an MSM reference would be a citation for the Men's Movement. Update: it's gone again. Looks like Men's Skirts took it over.

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Steve 1
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Post by Steve 1 »

The article has been through the mill lately, mainly thanks to an admin called JzG who considers it his duty to the world, to remove all traces of it by hook or by crook. I don't know the exact nature of his prejudices, but again and again he has shown them.

Firstly, he "speedily deleted" it. "Speedy deletion" is a tool open only to admins, where an article clearly and completely breaches the rules, or where there would be no real argument. So no discussion was held, and it just disappeared, with no way for non-admins to investigate the reasons. The excuse he gave, "recreation of deleted material" was proved later to be false. So with help from a few others, I overturned the deletion and - hopefully - got him a few black marks in the admin community.

Next, he put it into "Article for deletion", which is the normal procedure if someone thinks an article should not exist. This is what he should have done in the first place. Again his arguments were shown to be false, and it was restored. But during the debate, a user called Uncle G wrote a much better article (in my opinion) called "Men's skirts" and offered it as a replacement, to quell some of the criticisms against my article. I and many others voted in support of Uncle G's rewrite, and that is the article you can now see there -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_skirts

The admin JzG continues his efforts to reduce the impact of the article wherever he can, often giving false reasons for his edits. I and other continue to improve it here and there; and I've taken to policing it (not too much) to make sure that JzG's antics are kept in check. The main thing I do is to look at the 'history' tab and check out the reasons he gives for changing things. If they are false or seem unreasonable I undo his changes. Occasionally he appears to gets friends in to make negative changes, at his suggestion - but under cross-examination they disappear in a puff of logic, since they don't really understand what they are doing or why.

Thank you to everyone who has helped out, whether in the article or in the debates. If anyone wants to edit the article, feel free. I am just another editor who contributes now. But please make sure you have solid references, eg. books, magazines, newspaper articles, or authoritative websites (not personal or biased sites).

Our main ally in the admin staff is Ezeu. He seems to be neutral towards the subject matter, but appears to be a very fair-minded person and something of a wikipedia guru.

The main mistake I made in my previous article was to synthesize a number of minor, miscellaneous sources to support my viewpoint. So, don't do that! The statements you make should not add up to anything more than a series of facts describing things which can be reliably verified elsewhere. If it begins to look like advocacy or advice, or to show any bias (positive or negative), it will run into trouble! :)
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crfriend
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Post by crfriend »

Steve 1 wrote:The article [(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_skirts)] has been through the mill lately, mainly thanks to an admin called JzG who considers it his duty to the world, to remove all traces of it by hook or by crook. I don't know the exact nature of his prejudices, but again and again he has shown them.
The article as it reads now actually works pretty well. I have no idea what JzG's problem is, but he may be "compensating"; it's a common behaviour.
Steve1 wrote:The admin JzG continues his efforts to reduce the impact of the article wherever he can, often giving false reasons for his edits.
See "compensating". You may be dealing with someone who is desperately trying to cover up being a "crossdresser" (bad word, there -- sorry) by trying to obliterate any mention of anything other than tr*users as menswear.
Steve1 wrote:Thank you to everyone who has helped out, whether in the article or in the debates. If anyone wants to edit the article, feel free. I am just another editor who contributes now. But please make sure you have solid references, eg. books, magazines, newspaper articles, or authoritative websites (not personal or biased sites).
I've got a few, mainly dealing in the medieval timeframe where robes and gowns were commonplace, and can cite years of disappearance for said garb, but it's sufficiently removed in time as to probably be irrelevant.

I was lucky enough to take in this when I stopped off in New York (New York,USA): http://www.nypl.org/press/2006/rakish.cfm and was rather surprised to not see it listed in the article. It touches only tangentially on skirts for blokes, but shows a "wealthy Peleponesse" in a foustanella quite prominently. It was, I thought, a well put-together exhibition.

The blame for the penguin look, if the New York Public Library for the Humanities got it right, falls on one George "Beau" Brummel for making the original assertion that, "The well-dressed man's clothing should not be noticed." I hope he has a "warm lodging". Of course that lives on 'til today. There was a wedding party at my local watering-hole last night; all the males looked like clones of one another, and the women had all the fun.
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Post by ChristopherJ »

Well, I have to respect the views of others here - as I know little about the conventions of Wikipedia and how it all works. It all seems very strange to me.

Anyhow . . . my view is that the current article on skirts for men is a very poor one compared to that written by Steve1 previously. The current article may meet all the specifications etc. to comply with the Wiki guidelines etc. - but it contains very little of real substance in terms of information that would be useful to anyone searching.

Steve's article said quite a lot about WHY men may choose to wear skirts or kilts etc. - and even defined 'bravehearts' and freestylers' within MIS. Steve also referred to some historical aspects of male dress, modern ethnic male clothing, the law relating to male skirt wearers etc. The current article says nothing much about these subjects.

The new article devotes over half of its information to one museum exhibition in one U.S. city. Also, although extolling the sucess of Utilikilts in Seattle is certainly relevant, it tends to make the article seem very parochial. There is a whole world out there! And men of many cultures wear skirts. Yet this article seems to be about post 1960's USA - and very little else.

I don't like it.

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Steve 1
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Post by Steve 1 »

ChristopherJ - if you want to put up a web page with the advice from the previous article, I can send you the text.
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Post by ChristopherJ »

Thanks for the offer Steve - but I've got a copy of your Wiki page, as I saved the whole page to my PC. I'm glad that I did now.

I might put up my own little MIS website sometime. I've written quite a few websites so I'm familiar with doing that - and I'd like to just put up a personal skirting site. Nothing fancy - just some basic facts about MIS and hundreds of photos of ME!!!!!!

hee . . hee . . . just kidding.

Actually, what I kept a copy of your Wiki page for was to help me to write a short factsheet kind of thing that I can carry with me when I am out and about in a skirt - as I get a lot of people staring at me and I would like to be able to give them a factsheet that they can read which maybe would educate them about men and skirts. So I was going to plagiarize your Wikki page to create my factsheet. I'm sure that you wouldn't mind - would you? :crossfingers:

When I've written it, I will post it here to get some feedback before I start handing it out to the citizens of Bristol.
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Post by gshubert »

Would Steve1 and ChristopherJ (or like-minded individuals) be able to post here on this site a Wiki-like article, what they think it should look like, unemcumbered by the current Wiki restrictions?
--G. Shubert
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