What is the problem with the definition a wig for the pudendum? This is the definition in every dictionary I have ever used. I even use this word as a test of a good dictionary. Good dictionaries always have merkin and pudendum. 69.250.5.178 (talk) 05:50, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe, maybe not, but that is not the issue right now. You are edit warring. You do not have permission to force your version into any article. The long-standing consensus version (pubic wig) should remain until this issue is settled here. Pudendum is not used in the article at all. You would need multiple reliable sources. Per WP:BRD, when your edits are reverted, as they were, you must not restore them. You must discuss until a consensus has been reached. You are discussing now, but you have also restored again. That's three times and you were warned you could get blocked for doing so. Look at your talk page and read the edit summaries. I'm going to revert to the consensus version. If you restore your new version, you will be reported for edit warring and get blocked. You could be 100% correct, but you can still get blocked for edit warring. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Frankly, the change seems pretty reasonable to me. In a case like this, "multiple" sources may not even be required because the definition isn't really being disputed, just a noun is being changed. Both edits really mean the same thing. In any event, the Random House dictionary says "false hair for the female pudenda." Collins English Dictionary says "an artificial hairpiece for the pudendum; a pubic wig." Both are found here and both certainly qualify as reliable sources. I found an article about merkin use in films that also refes to it as being used to create a "fully forested pudenda" , so we can see a use outside of just dictionary form too. In fairness, I should also point out that BRD is an essay, so saying that an edit "must not" be reverted per that essay is a bit misleading. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- While pubic is the more common and recognizable word, it is inexact and improperly used in this case. The Pubis is the area of the lower abdomen surrounding the genitals. A merkin, as is made clear both in the picture in this article and in the usage section of this article, is generally used to cover the external genitals entirely, and not just the pubic region. This is why Collin's and Randomhouse have chosen to use pudendum in their definitions, because pudendum means the entire external genitals, and not just the pubic region above the genitals. If the merkin was simply a pubic wig, only covering the pubic region and not the genitals themselves, it could not be used in strip clubs to get around the laws against full nudity or by actors to get around MPAA rules concerning full nudity. If some dictionaries have chosen to use pubic in their definition, I suspect this is simply because pudendum is a less well known word than pubic, not because pubic is more correct. 69.250.5.178 (talk) 16:02, 2 December 2013 (UTC) 69.250.5.178
At least now we're talking. Edit warring is not allowed. While BRD is not binding, it is widely accepted by the community and is the only way to determine who has started an edit war. Admins routinely use it to determine whether to block and who to block. I used a 3RR warning tag to provide the warning, thus letting the IP know they were approaching the bright line (although one can be blocked for less than three reverts), and how to move forward, which is to follow BRD. Regardless of one's opinion about BRD, edit warring is still a blockable offense, especially when warned in the edit summary and user talk page.
If it didn't primarily refer to the female vulva (as your dictionary indicates) and entrance to the female sexual organs themselves, I would have no problem with the word pudendum (which correctly redirects to the female vulva because males don't have a vulva 
). Pubic and pudenda are not exact synonyms.
Pubic wig is gender neutral and applies to both men and women, and they are used by both male and female actors, and pudendum would not work for a male. In English pubic wig, which is far more widely used (including Kate Winslet's quote), just sounds better to me. A merkin essentially substitutes for "pubic hair" (2,440,000 results), not "pudendal hair" (1,300 results), an expression one rarely hears. In fact, pubic hair surrounds the pudenda. The frequency of common usage is so overwhelming that pubic hair wins hands down, and sometimes we do use Google search results to make such decisions.
Another more banal reason why this attempt was initially rejected is that it violates WP:LEAD. The lead should not contain any information not already contained in the body of the article, and it should summarize the article, which exclusively uses the words pubic wig.
Maybe those are reasons why the article only uses that term "pubic wig". If you still don't agree, then follow our dispute resolution process, usually starting with a request for comment. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:40, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Whoa. Wait a second. I see no discussion about this issue previously, so acting like it is "consensus" just because it was in the article is not valid. Just because you disagree, the next step isn't a RFC. You've made a single response to two editors that disagree with you. We're not to RfC territory yet. Counting Ghits isn't exactly the right method here either. Yes, "pubic wig" is more commonly used, but that doesn't make the other term incorrect. And why did you use that particular phrase any way? And would either of you like to explain why we're not even discussing including both terms? Niteshift36 (talk) 18:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Of course we're not at RfC yet, but we're dealing with a newbie who needs to know about the DR process. After discussion, if they still aren't satisfied, they can go there, but we're still discussing, and that's fine.
- Instead of "consensus", maybe "default" (previous version) would be a better word, and we usually restore the default version until a consensus has formed to make a disputed change.
- Adding the term pudendum might be okay, if a suggested wording can use it properly. The problem is that it primarily refers to female anatomy, rarely
never to male. So let's discuss the term in light of a suggested use in the article. Discussing the word in isolation is a waste of time. Let's see suggested wording for how to use a [nearly] exclusively female term in an article that applies to both males and females. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:10, 2 December 2013 (UTC) (tweaked per comments below)
- First of all, I thought the whole damn point of wikipedia was that anyone one could edit it, and I didn't realize I needed to go through its self appoint gate keepers because I am some "newbie." You made the first revert, and didn't say a thing here before reverting my edit twice, so from my perspective you are the edit warrior. I didn't see the need to use BRD in an article with few editors, while making what seems to me to be an insignificant and uncontroversial edit. Plus after reading those essays on BRD and reverts, it seems to me that the ethos is when in doubt edit, and revert only when necessary. You made the first revert, and as far as I am concerned, the onus is on you to start a discussion before you revert my edit, which was small and reasonable.
- Furthermore, from , pudendum is not exclusively used to refer to female genitalia. It is used for both male and female external genitalia, but is simply more often used to refer to female genitalia. This makes it even more appropriate because a merkin is more often used by women, and the definition of merkin in some dictionaries refers to it exclusively as a wig for the female pudenda (also they wouldn't have to say female if pudenda wasn't gender neutral). You are simply wrong on the point of gender neutrality.
- The adjective form pudendal is almost never used, so of course pudendal hair doesn't have many hits.
- In addition, as I said before, the most common use of a merkin is NOT as a replacement for pubic hair. It is used most often to cover the genitals from view, whether to hide signs of disease or to hide the genitals to conform to rules banning full-frontal nudity in movies and strip clubs. To cover pudenda in strips clubs and on movie sets is where merkins are most often used today, and the use of a merkin as a substitute for pubic hair is a secondary, less common, use. Even the picture in the article shows a clear example of how a merkin is usually used, as a covering for the pudendum, not as a replacement for pubic hair. A wig for the pudendum is therefore the more accurate definition as a merkin is most often used to cover the pudendum, not as a replacement for pubic hair. Saying a merkin is a pubic wig is misleading because it leads the reader to believe that the its primary use is as a replacement for pubic hair, which it is not.
- As far as I am concerned, you made the first revert, the only only other person discussing this here agrees mine was reasonable edit, and the onus is on you to start the dispute resolution if you disagree. 69.250.5.178 (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- Of course I made the first revert of your bold edit. Yours was the B in BRD, and mine was the R. Now we are at D. BRD is not spelled BRRRD. The onus is on you to make a case for not keeping the default version, but if you persist, I will start an RfC before allowing this change. Let's hope that isn't necessary. On the slim chance your version wins an RfC, I will of course bow to that decision.
- You made what you considered "an insignificant and uncontroversial edit," but when you got reverted, that signalled that others did not consider it to be "insignificant and uncontroversial." Now you know how things work here. We edit collaboratively. Many people have this article on their watchlists. Some may comment, and some may not notice. With the nearly 17,000 items on my watchlist, and over 40,000 edits, it's a miracle I even noticed. This isn't a place which you can treat as your own website. Whatever is created here gets edited by anyone. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- We need to clear up a factual issue first. Websters DOES say is is not exclusive to females, as does Oxford and MacMillan. More common? I won't argue that. But saying it is only female is factually incorrect. Our own Wiktionary (and yes, I know we can't use it as a source) says it can apply to either. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:00, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
What you say ("Websters DOES say is is not exclusive to females,") is not correct. It says "especially the external genitals of a woman." There is a fundamental difference between "not exclusive" (your words, not any dictionary) and "especially". You might think that's a technical difference, and it is in a very strict sense, but the meaning is totally different. We should stick to the meaning. (On that technical basis I'll revise my wording above.)
Here are a few dictionary defs:
- "the external genital organs of a human being; especially the external genitals of a woman : vulva—usually used in plural."
- "An external genital organ in a human; especially a woman’s vulva."
- "(Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Anatomy) (often plural) the human external genital organs collectively, esp of a female"
- "Anatomy. the external genital organs, especially those of the female; vulva."
Strictly speaking, it can apply to both sexes, but not normally. It would be a relatively rare occurrence to find an example applied to a male, compared to applied to a woman. We should use the typical definition.
Definitions usually note that it applies "especially to females" and to the vulva, not the larger pubic area, which is what a pubic wig covers. -- Brangifer (talk) 21:35, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
- I wasn't incorrect. Websters does say it can apply to both. It says "human being", then says USUALLY the female. It's not original research to realize what it says.....both. In any case, you finally accept the fact that the term does not apply solely to women, so we can eliminate the notion that is can only apply to women as one of your arguments against it. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously. That's what I said. Since it applies "especially to females", then pudenda is "especially" meant to refer to women, but since we need a term which applies equally to men and women, pubic is the better choice. It is gender neutral. Do you have some other suggestion for how we could incorporate that expression as an addition to the article? We could discuss that. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
- Pubic is not the better choice because it leads to exactly the misreading that you yourself made of this article, namely that the primary purpose of a merkin is as a replacement for pubic hair. That is not its primary purpose, it is used to cover pudenda. This misreading is exactly what I am trying to avoid by using pudendum.
- As far as I can see your are just being stubborn on the gender neutrality issue, and have no argument. Both Collins and Random house use pudendum in their definitions of merkin, so it is clearly not an inappropriate word to use when defining merkin. Particularly because merkins are more commonly used by women. It is a gender neutral term, usage does not change this, and I am with Niteshift36 in saying that we can eliminate this as an argument against it.
- If you have some other argument against the edit, then we can discuss that, but otherwise it seems that a majority consensus has been reached in favor of it. I can change the rest of the article so pubic wig isn't used in the rest of the article either. If you have a problem with this, file a dispute before you revert any changes. Revert wars are not allowed. 69.250.5.178 (talk) 21:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
- We have not come to an agreement and seem to be at an impasse. Since consensus is not a simple majority vote, especially when so few editors have expressed their views, I am, according to BRD, going to restore the default version. You have made your Bold edit, I have Reverted, and now Discussion will continue. Any attempt to force your change of the longstanding default version will be considered a resumption of your edit warring, as explained to you several times. Since we apparently need wider community input, I will also file an RfC to determine what should happen. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:15, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
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