Talk:Public humiliation

Private investigation
This is now the legal term for an apparent legal procedure by process servers. Chris 06:43, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


 * What do you mean? Do you have a citation for this? Gothnic 06:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Just learned of it tonight and was kind of shocked, will try to source. Chris 07:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Removed False edit
The phrase "Some times they would make you listen to justin bieber." appeard in the "Painful Humiliation" section. I have removed it. Chardansearavitriol (talk) 23:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Change headings?
I would like to make the headings more into standard headings, like "history", "examples", or alike. Does anyone object? Furthermore, I would like to re-arrange the text to differentiate between "historical" shaming examples and current ones. As an example for a current one I want to add a reference to community-led total sanitation, a sentence like this: "Public shaming, including photographing, of those who still practice open defecation is sometimes used by people promoting community-led total sanitation to achieve behaviour change." EMsmile (talk) 07:14, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I've done a bit of work now but I think more work is needed. I think the article had too much emphasis on historical examples; it should be clearer what is historical and what is current. For this, we also need to move away from just focusing on the United States and Europe. Things that are outlawed there might not be outlawed elsewhere. EMsmile (talk) 08:05, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Stocks are not pillories.
Pillories are not stocks. But the image depicted here for a pillory is a set of stocks. 121.210.33.50 (talk) 10:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Original Research
I've removed a very big chunk of old WP:OR from an WP:TLA with a certain icky fixation. Porcsten (talk) 15:21, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Kudos are removing the sections lacking citations. However, I notice that among the portions of text you removed were two that were supported by a total of 10 citations. In what way were those OR? Nightscream (talk) 15:36, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The initial poster asserted that "forcing people to go barefoot has been used as a relatively effortless and more subtle form of humiliation in most past and present civilized cultures" and offered these cites for support. The problem is, the sources don't actually say that, though. They are just a list of examples from here and there, being used in a WP:SYNTH to support a general principle they don't actually say. It's the SYNTH that makes them WP:OR. Porcsten (talk) 16:19, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your speedy reply. What about the other two citation-supported passages. A look at both them, which are about head shaving and marching prisoners barefoot, shows that the citations support those passages. Why did you remove those too? Nightscream (talk) 16:23, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * At this point the whole revision has been reverted by another editor, and if there is a lack of consensus for my change, then that's that. Porcsten (talk) 16:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I just think you should remove only the parts where you are unable to find sources to support the content. Not just removing the entire section. I actually think we could find good sources for some of this content currently tagged "citation needed" — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:07, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * In most cases I'd agree. In this case, though, it's material that's been included, albeit a while ago, by an multi-banned WP:TLA who injected his unique fixation (punitive humiliation, prisons, and bare feet) into a whole series of entries, with a pattern of ginning up some pretty extraordinary WP:OR things from the air and then either failing to support them with sources, or propping them up with WP:SYNTH using sources at best remotely and tangentially in support of his claim. This is just one more entry in his pattern and makes it much harder to WP:AGF.
 * But having said that, by Wikipedia standards the damage was done ages ago, and I'm not going to pound the table saying it's urgent to fix it this very minute. Porcsten (talk) 17:33, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think our course of action, then, is to weed through and remove the parts that are unsupported, and add cites to the parts that are. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 17:35, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * If you're indicating that you plan on doing this, then that's fine. Otherwise, those uncited portions should be removed since one has been fact-tagged for five months, and the others for seven. Nightscream (talk) 17:51, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The problem is that even the stuff with citations is no good. He's piled in half a dozen more or less random news articles, for example, with no common theme except that each one had a barefoot prisoner in it. All to illustrate that sometimes prisoners are barefoot. Why? Not because it's in any way important to the topic, but because he likes the idea and poured it into as many tangential entries as he thought he could get away with. It's WP:SYNTH about a WP:HATRACK-ed topic of very marginal relevance to the entry. Trying to retrofit those parts into rationality just because those parts are already there strikes me as the wrong approach. It's better to recognize it as residue of an old spasm from an WP:TLA and take it out on that basis. Porcsten (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Happy to remove some of that, but we should not remove all of it. Some of the content you removed is DUE, but I agree the parts you describe likely are not. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 18:51, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * If you're indicating that you plan on doing this, then that's fine. Otherwise, those uncited portions should be removed since one has been fact-tagged for five months, and the others for seven I'm working on it piece by piece. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 18:50, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * They're no good because they don't have a common theme? I'm sorry, but that's not how citation on Wikipedia works. The citation only needs to support the claim in the Wikipedia article, which those citations indeed do. Make no mistake, it's gratifying to come across another editor who takes a truthful and realistic stand against uncited info, but I see no basis for the claim that "important to the topic" or "because he likes it" has anything to do with this. One passage says that people's heads are sometimes shaved as a form of public humiliation, and the citations for that indeed support this (The Guardian one clearly does, while the title of the print citation appears to). The second passage says that prisoners are walked barefoot in public or in court, and the multiple sources cited there do say this. That's all that is needed, which is perfectly "rational", and therefore not an indiation that the editor who added that did so because they "liked" it (whatever that means). Nonetheless, I hope we can collaborate in the future. Nightscream (talk) 18:52, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I do agree with the new user that the paragraph on foot humiliation is probably excessive. I removed it. But I think I will restore some parts that appear clearly DUE. Is that good? or do you think we should keep the whole paragraph? See my most recent edit. I do think we could remove some of the WP:OVERCITE. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 18:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe I wasn't being clear. They do have a common theme: relevance to the WP:LTA's fixation. But that's about it. Which wouldn't be a problem, except they're being used en masse to emulate significant support for a claim they do not actually support. The WP:LTA has cherry-picked a few examples from here and there and used them as his only support for a far more sweeping assertion, an assertion that not one of the examples actually makes or should be implied to have made. He wants to elevate his fixation about bare feet and public humiliation to a universal principle sweeping across the globe. But that's not what his sources actually say.
 * The LTA's approach is called synthesis: "When you put them together they say...". There are logical issues with generalizing from the particular to the universal, and there's a WP problem too: it's WP:SYNTH, which is rightly considered a form of OR. Which is why I removed the entire bit for being OR. Porcsten (talk) 19:49, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Why don't we just collaborate on which parts are worth keeping and which aren't? — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 20:04, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that's a good idea. Actually, your edits have largely already addressed my basic concerns, so thanks! Porcsten (talk) 20:08, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Okay. Going forward, what's the specific claim that you feel is not supported in the sources, which should be removed from the article? Nightscream (talk) 16:52, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of the really problematic stuff is gone. There is still this: "The exposure of bare feet often served as an indicator for imprisonment and slavery throughout ancient and modern history", a pretty sweeping claim none of the cited sources actually make. There are illustrative antecdotes but that's different than supporting sources. It's like saying "cats are black" and posting a link to a photo of a black cat. Porcsten (talk) 17:23, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually I would say it's more akin to saying "There were black cats in lots of different time periods and places" and then pointing to pictures of black cats in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Medieval Europe, Modern Asia, and Modern America. That's just WP:SKYBLUE and summary-style. I would be fine with editing that sentence to: The exposure of bare feet has often served as an indicator for imprisonment and slavery in various cultures. if it's a compromise you can be more agreeable to. — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 18:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't mind. I'd prefer "The exposure of bare feet has  often  served as an indicator for imprisonment and slavery in various cultures." I don't mind "things happen, and here are examples" but that's a different claim than "things often happen, and here are examples." Porcsten (talk) 14:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅, I agree that's an ideal wording — Shibboleth ink  (♔ ♕) 15:35, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Great, thank you. Porcsten (talk) 17:55, 23 May 2023 (UTC)