Talk:Gay community

Article Checklist for "Gay community"

Workgroup category or categories	Sociology Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	No
Checklist last edited by	--Ian Johnson 04:48, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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I started this article from scratch here at Citizendium.--Ian Johnson 04:48, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Original author notes

This article is part of a range of gay related articles I am in the process of creating at CZ.

There will be needed sources and relevant links added soon, and I hope that other CZers will feel very welcome to join with me to help build this and other GLBT related articles. --Ian Johnson 04:48, 26 July 2007 (CDT)

Definition

"The gay community is a collective reference to those people in society who are homosexual." Isn't it possible for someone who is "in the closet," in society of course (not a hermit), but not part of "the gay community"? This seems to me to be very important. To assert that all gays are by definition part of a "gay community" seems to make the notion of a gay community practically meaningless. But if not all gays are, by definition, part of a "gay community," then what is required to be part of it (of one)?

I think of this on analogy with the folk music community. There are people who are very fine musicians but who virtually never play with others, or only as part of a band that occasionally plays out, but never interacts with other musicians. I don't think they're really part of a folk music community, in any useful sense of "community." And I can actually give some clue of what I think someone has to be to be part of the community: they have to know other people in the community, to play music with them either in jam sessions or bands, they attend concerts and festivals, they might teach classes or attend them, etc. --Larry Sanger 01:51, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

Excellent observations. Working on it now. --Ian Johnson 01:59, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

Rename "The Future" to "Criticism", "Debates", or "Current Debates"?

Great job on this new article, Ian!

Since most of the section on "The Future" is about current debates concerning the "relevance of notions of a gay community", wouldn't it make sense to rename the section title to "Current Debates" or something similar? Matthias Röder 18:09, 10 August 2007 (CDT)

Thanks for the kind words. Very good suggestion too. Always just jump right in and improve it. I would love to see more collaborators on all the GLBT stuff. Gay community is still needing a lot more work and everyone's help can lift it up. I took the liberty of implementing your suggestion as ==Current issues== but please make it whatever you think suits it, especially as the article evolves and others contribute to it. --Ian Johnson 09:05, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

"Current Issues" is perfect! Best of luck with your articles, I'll try to contribute wherever I can! For instance we could have an article about Gay and Lesbian Musicology. I'm not an expert in this field, however... Matthias Röder 10:46, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

That would be BRILLIANT to see. Start up when ready - me, you or anyone. Great topic idea. --Ian Johnson 10:48, 11 August 2007 (CDT)