Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 October 19

= October 19 =

New York legal citation
What's the proper legal citation for "An act to provide for the incorporation of religious societies", enacted 1813 by the New York legislature? The act in question appears on the fifth page of Religious incorporations : laws of the state of New York relating to religious incorporations, with all the latest amendments., published 1872. A footnote at the bottom of the page reads ''2 R. L. P. 212. J. & V. v. 1 104; K. & R. v. 1, 337; W. v. 3. 388; W. v. 6, 554; 3 Greenleaf, 188.'' However, that seems to be a bit long for a normal legal citation. Nyttend (talk) 02:45, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't that because it's five legal citations, separated by semicolons?--Shantavira|feed me 08:32, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

I asked a law librarian whom I know. Proper citation is 1813 N.Y. Laws [page], with the last bit being the page on which the act appears in the book of laws passed in 1813. Nyttend (talk) 22:46, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The citation for a British Act of that period would be e.g. "Duchy of Cornwall Act 1812 (52 Geo 3 c 123)". Would the correct citation for this in fact be something like "1813 cap 60"? Examples are "See acts 1847, Chaps. 85, 188, 209;", "Laws of 1862, Ch. 802" and "Act of 1860, p. 607, chap 360." At some point laws seem to be cited by volume, e.g. 'Title four of chapter eighteen of part first of the revised statutes, entitled "Special provisions relating to certain corporations."'  There are pictures of the statute books at Law of New York (state) and Consolidated Laws of New York. The state legislation now appears to be divided into Consolidated Laws, Unconsolidated Laws, and Other Legislation. According to Laws of New York:

Laws of the State of New York is the annual periodical containing the session laws of the New York State Legislature, i.e., "chapter laws", bills that become law (bearing the governor's signature or just certifications of passage) which have been assigned a chapter number in the office of the legislative secretary to the governor, and printed in chronological order (by chapter number). Laws are usually cited in the form of "Chapter X of the Laws of YYYY" or "L. YYYY, c. X", where X is the chapter number and YYYY is the year.

Where to write on "Forced circumcision of children"?
There's an article Forced circumcision in Wikipedia categorized under "Violence against men". But the entire article talks about forced circumcision of adult men in different areas of the world. And the Forced circumcision article doesn't address forced circumcision of children. The Wikipedia article Circumcision categorized under "Surgical procedures" doesn't address forced circumcision of children either.

Most of the forced circumcisions are committed against child, pre-teen and teen boys rather than against adults, where the children are either physically forced or are tricked to undergo the procedure. And in many cultures, these circumcisions are done by non-medical traditional operators with non-surgical instruments, and often with no anesthesia.

Video evidences provided below-

Video evidence 1 – Forced circumcision of Muslim boy in Asia by illiterate traditional operator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkyjZ1kTNU0&t=6s

Video evidence 2 – Forced circumcision of child/teen boys in Africa by illiterate local operators: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jziT0kK_t-8

Video evidence 3 – Bangladeshi Muslim child boy try to defend physically but no luck to prevent his forced circumcision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMe7lTc8PQM

Video evidence 4 - Forced circumcision of an Indian Muslim boy (boy screaming loud in extreme pain, but everybody surrounding is laughing, having fun): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISXDzw3DN5I

Video evidence 5 - Bangladeshi Muslim boy can’t bear the pain of his forced circumcision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3JV1s61b4o

Video evidence 6 - The scream of this boy seems to be very funny for Bangladeshi Muslims, so they were all laughing during the violent ordeal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTAlXGQoXkw

Video evidence 7 - Video of forced circumcision being taken against the wishes of the Indian Muslim boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWoUHZ_gX0Q

The above videos are disturbing. Voices of the boys are clear. Attacks on them are brutal. Lots of forced circumcision videos have been uploaded to Youtube and many are being uploaded everyday.

In Video 3, we see a child is trying to physically defend himself from forced circumcision, but his family members are shouting at him and physically forcing him to undergo the procedure.

In Video 7, the boy who was being forcibly circumcised requested his family members not to take video of the violence. A female family member promised not to take video of the offense. But actually they filmed the entire operation and uploaded the video to Youtube. Even though it’s illegal to upload such video of a child in internet, the offenders made it clear that they are not afraid of law or court.

About the “Video 1”, the title of the above video in Youtube is “Funny Khatna 2016”. In Islam, “Khatna” means “Circumcision”. And for “UBAID UR REHMAN”, a fundamentalist Muslim, the uploader of the video, the screaming of the boy during his un-anesthesized circumcision was so funny. So he titled the video as “Funny Khatna 2016”. Also, about the Video 6, Monoar Bin ahmed, a Bangladeshi Muslim, the uploader of the video, titled the video as "fun:......"

Often in a forced circumcision case, we see a boy is screaming and people surrounding him are laughing. For example, in video 4 and in video 6, we see a boy is screaming loud in extreme pain during his forced circumcision, but everybody surrounding him is laughing and having fun with this.

Now the question is that where to write on "Forced circumcision of children" in Wikipedia?

1. Is it appropriate to create an additional article titled Forced circumcision of children?

Or, 2. Is it appropriate to write on "Forced circumcision of children" in the Wikipedia article Forced circumcision?

Or, 3. Is it appropriate to write on "Forced circumcision of children" in the Wikipedia article Circumcision?

The topic is posted here in Talk:Circumcision, but I haven't yet got any exact answer.

Abir Babu (talk) 14:05, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "Male Genital Mutilation"?
The Wikipedia page Male genital mutilation is redirected to the Wikipedia page "Genital modification and mutilation" . Though the Wikipedia article Genital modification and mutilation addresses the definition and examples of "Female Genital Mutilation" explicitly, the article doesn't address any such thing as "Male Genital Mutilation". The article doesn't address any definition for "Male Genital Mutilation" and doesn't even address offenses such as "Penectomy", "Castration", "Penile subincision", "Male infibulation", "Male genital piercing and tatooing" as a genital mutilation. This only sends a message that Wikipedia considers as there is no such thing as "Male Genital Mutilation". Though some forms of male genital cutting may not be considered a mutilation in some cultures, this doesn't mean that there is no such thing as "Male Genital Mutilation" and Wikipedia can't have a page titled "Male Genital Mutilation". The page Male genital mutilation should be an independent page like Female genital mutilation page and will represent offenses such as "Penectomy", "Castration", "Penile subincision", "Male infibulation", "Male genital piercing and tatooing" etc. The topic is posted in Talk:Male genital mutilation, but I haven't yet got any exact answer. Abir Babu (talk) 14:06, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * There are no current widespread common cultural practices which significantly interfere with the basic functions of the male genitals. Some traditional Australian aboriginal initiation practices etc. could fairly be called "male genital mutilation", but they are not a widespread social problem in the modern era. AnonMoos (talk) 15:32, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * We have an article on celibacy which may / may not be interpreted as mutilation. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:29, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Abstention is not mutilation. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:02, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Removing one's penis from a third of its purpose is to alter it radically so as to make it imperfect. Not physically, but it still works. Starting celibate and staying that way doesn't alter anything and probably hurts less, so that's something else. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * There is also castrato, partly from the same culture. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 17:41, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * That would be because male genital mutilation is considered the norm in the US, and is therefore 'normal' by Wiki standards. Fgf10 (talk) 08:36, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, a facile and shallow analogy between female genital mutilation and male circumcision doesn't help clarify anything, since circumcision doesn't significantly interfere with the basic functions of the male genitals, and can actually have minor health benefits in some contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 09:32, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I merely stated facts to answer the question. I will not indulge in your debate, and not rise to you puerile insults. Suffice to say is that 'evidence' if flimsy at best. Fgf10 (talk) 10:58, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No, what you did was use a perjorative, emotionally-laden term for a normal, harmless practice. That's the problem.  -- Jayron 32 11:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * An unneeded and potentially harmful medical procedure performed on an unwilling participant. My description was entirely factual. The gender of the victim is irrelevant here. Fgf10 (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Birth itself is done to the unwilling. Impugning the procedure because the infant is unwilling is just silly, because the infant is not capable of will.  There are lots of things that happen to infants where they don't get a say.  That don't get to chose the clothes they wear, the language spoken to them by their parents, the brand of diapers they are swaddled in.  To claim that something is immoral simply because the infant wasn't asked about their will is asinine.  -- Jayron 32 13:12, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your examples are asinine. They are not a permanent mutilation of the body. But I've stooped down to you level by even debating this, so have fun defending barbaric practises, but I'm out. Fgf10 (talk) 13:47, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * See, there it is again. Using words like "mutilation" and "barbaric".  You can't claim to be representing "facts" but then use subjective moralistic terms that represent your opinion as fact.  It doesn't work like that.  -- Jayron 32 15:56, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't want to get into the business of whether there's anything called MGM, but I should point out as I've done before that the problem with claiming that all things classified as FGM are more harmful or abnormal than circumcision is not support by any ref in this thread. And a read of our article on female genital mutilation helps (indirectly) explain why many people may have trouble simply accepting the claim. If you read it, it's quite clear that it covers things like type IV 'harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes", including pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.' If people in this thread feel that pricking of the clitoris is more harmful and abnormal than circumcision, that's up to them. But if they're claiming specific medical harm then evidence should be presented for this.  We also have the interesting situation that type 1 covers both "Type Ia (circumcision)[39] involves removal of the clitoral hood only and "Type Ib (clitoridectomy)". Both of these may sound a bit horrific but there are reasons why tupe Ia is often called circumcision (including in our article). And again, if someone is claiming it causes significantly more medical harm than (male) circumcision, evidence should be presented.  The claim is made that type Ia is rarely performed alone, although I've never seen evidence this has actually be well studied.Things like the UNICEF survey  per our article or a read of the source seems to have just considered "cut, flesh removed". In any case, even if it's true that type Ia is rarely performed alone having it just a subtype seems to wrong strong risk of conflating something which causes significant physical effects, with something who's physical effects are less clear.  It's true that vast majority of the occurences of considered FGM are barbaric and cause significant complications or physical effects. The problem arises when you imply this means all such practices should be considered FGM, a horrific thing that must be stamped out. But then (male) circumcision should not be treated as such. The only thing that circumcision seems to have going for it is that there's some evidence of a medical benefit in certain circumstances. But this evidence is fairly recent and it seems clear it has little to do with the difference in the way the practices are treated.  In case there's any dispute that this is how things are treated, let's all remember what happened when the American Academy of Pediatrics [//www.medscape.com/viewarticle/722840] (also covered in our article, which also covers the controversy over their position on circumcision). That only deals with the procedures on children and infants where clear issues of consent arise. But there is likewise increasing controversy over the fact that women are to their surprise, finding that they're classified as having undergone FGM due to their piercings they got in adulthood   . (Remember that by comparison, Prince Albert (genital piercing) is simply a piercing.)  Nil Einne (talk) 12:01, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * P.S. Am I the only one who thinks these "questions" should simply have been deleted? AFAICT the OP isn't interested in the whys and wherefors of FGM, circumcision and MGM. They're simply interested in trying to change wikipedia. But that isn't what the RD is for. If the OP feels they are not getting responses to their attempts, they're welcom to try some form of WP:Dispute Resolution although that normal presupposed you're familiar with the history of the articles and similar proposals. Nil Einne (talk) 13:15, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I would be OK with closing this down. It mainly serves the purpose to allow some users to announce their moral superiority by creating demons out of people who have harmless traditions they don't personally agree with.  -- Jayron 32 13:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

How many polling stations are there in Venezuela?
In the recent (oct 15) gubernatorial election in Venezuela, about 330 polling stations (or "voting centres") were moved a few days or weeks before the election. The government says this was to move them to less potentially violent locations; the opposition says it confused or inhibited some of their supporters. To help guage the potential impact of this on the election, I would like to know how many voting stations there were, in total, in the election; so I can determine what proportion of the total did these 330-odd stations represent?

-- Communpedia Tribal (talk) 19:22, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * "More than 13,559 polling stations" according to Over 1,300 Observers Monitor Venezuela Election. Alansplodge (talk) 09:54, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Gracias --  Communpedia Tribal (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2017 (UTC)