Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Adult-child sex (2nd nomination)

This AfD is currently undergoing a deletion review, which can be found here... ~ Homologeo (talk) 20:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

from main page Break 4
[section breaks in AfDs should not address content, and are for editing convenience only. I've renamed this section "break 4" like the other sections, and moved the heading title originally stated by ~ Homologeo at 23:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC). to his comnet following below. I believe this is correct and transparent so there is no effect one way or the other resulting from titles of section headings. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2008 (UTC)]

Although a copy remains here, this comment has been moved back to the main AfD page. Thus, this text is stricken through. Comment: Response to assertion that "Adult-child sex" is a POV fork (Per request by Jack-A-Roe, and considering that I have not had the time to read through this entire AfD page yet, I am temporarily moving this comment here) - As for the POV fork accusation, this issue has been discussed many times. "Adult-child sex" (ACS) deals with sexual interactions between an adult and a child, both in the present and throughout history, presenting the contemporary widely-accepted view of this phenomenon, opposing modern viewpoints, and what perspectives existed in the past. Merging or redirecting to "Child sexual abuse" (CSA) would not work because that article deals almost exclusively with the contemporary popular medical and legal description of CSA. Likewise, it is inappropriate to discuss ACS in "Pedophilia," because that article focuses on the contemporary medical definition of a mental disorder or paraphilia. A pedophile is defined as someone who is attracted to prepubescent children, and these is no part of the definition that states this person has to engage in ACS in order to be assigned this label. Besides, a pedophile is attracted to only one type of children (prepubescent), so the article on pedophilia cannot be used to discuss ACS in general terms. Finally, it has been established that pedophiles are, by far, not the only adults that engage in ACS. For these reasons, "Adult-child sex" cannot be merged or redirected to either "Child sexual abuse" or "Pedophilia." ~ Homologeo (talk) 20:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Concern about fair procedure.: Homologeo, why are you adding this detailed statement of your opinion at the top of the page, above and ahead of extensive discussion by others over the last two days? The entire discussion has been a debate on the points you're adding here. You added your comment out of sequence, posted at the top to get "special attention". It reads like a vote, but is not stated it as a vote.   (Your shorter comment above, that is a reply to another user, that's different.)  But your long comment here is a position statement not in reply to anything other than the initial nomination, with two days of activity intervening. In the interests of fairness of debate and to all the others who have been working on this, I request that you move your general comment to the bottom of the page, where others are posting theirs.  Thank you. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)  [struck-through my comment since it no longer applies. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)]


 * Response to Jack-A-Roe's concern – Despite what you may think, there was no malicious or secret intent behind my comment, and I will gladly move it down (for now) if its current placement bothers you so much. However, so you know, this was a direct response to SqueakBox's assertion that "Adult-child sex" is a POV fork and his implication that it should be either merged or redirected elsewhere, with "Child sexual abuse" and "Pedophilia" being the two primary target articles usually recommended. Per usual Wikipedia custom, I responded to someone's comment by directly referencing the claim I would like to address and appropriately placing my comment, with proper indentation, underneath the original statement by the other editor. Thus, I believe your accusation does not hold water. Still, to alleviate any discomfort my comment's placement has caused you, for the time being, I will move it down in the flow. Howbeit, my intention is to read through this entire page and to respond to other editors' comments when appropriate through comments of my own and with proper indentation. Do you suggest that I start a brand new section at the bottom and attempt to respond to all preceding comments by others there? I don't think that would make much sense. ~ Homologeo (talk) 23:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Reply. I didn't mean to imply "malicious intent". I only added that note because people have been working hard here, and your long comment added a summary at the top that was not there when everyone else wrote what they wrote.  Thanks for moving it, and I will strike-through my complaint about where you posted it.


 * Regarding your comment: "Do you suggest that I start a brand new section at the bottom and attempt to respond to all preceding comments by others there?" --  obviously that's not what I meant, and I don't believe you actually think that's where I was coming from, so that part of your reply was not needed.    --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * A Modest Proposal -- If I might make a suggestion, could simplified Keep or Delete etc. reasons be placed here, and lengthier discussions placed on the talk page, but linked from here, in the interest of concission and not setting any records for the size of an AfD page? This would emulate the solution used in the recent ArbCom election, so I think it might work. --SSBohio 00:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Response to Jack-A-Roe's reply to me.
 * So, by that argument -- that those other articles (Pederasty in ancient Greece, Philosophy of Greek pederasty, Pederasty in the modern world, Platonic love) cover the same material -- then you'd equally be willing for any of them to be merged into Adult-child sex -- as much as you'd be willing to see Adult-child sex merged into them? Is it symmetric?
 * Oh, no? They don't cover the same thing? Well, that's what people are trying to tell you. Adult-child sex covers the phenomenon as a general activity, not its specific embodiment in any particular culture.  There must be thousands of legitimate WP articles like that.
 * The wording of your response does imply that you consider those other articles (Pederasty in ancient Greece, Philosophy of Greek pederasty, Pederasty in the modern world, Platonic love) legitimate and don't plan to ask for their deletion. (If you were planning to ask for their deletion later, then you'd be disingenuous now in telling us that those articles can serve the purpose of this one.) Why then wouldn't a general article be legitimate?
 * No article neutrally covering a social phenomenon that has occurred in other cultures and sporadically in our own is necessarily a "Classic POV fork." You have a POV that disapproves (and I share your strong disapproval of adult-child sex), but that doesn't make it inherently POV to cover the fact that many people have disagreed with us (assuming always that the coverage is neutral and scientific) -- as a widespread anthropological and sociological fact.  Our criterion for covering social phenomena is notability, not disapproval.
 * Furthermore, your initial contention -- that adult-child sex is factually equivalent to abuse -- is itself a POV: your moral disapproval. I share your strong disapproval -- but Plato didn't, or not in all its forms -- and our disagreement doesn't make the opposite POV more nonfactual than ours. You have no right to enforce your own POV by declaring it to be a "fact."
 * If you think WP should fully cover the facts about the damage adults have done in sexual situations with children -- and also that WP should fully cover the social phenomena in which societies have condemned adult-child sex -- and also that WP should include full coverage and links so that children of any kind of abuse can recognize they should seek help and to contact organizations trying to help them -- and also that links to and summaries of all such coverage should be included fairly in any article that might reasonably be misinterpreted to endorse adult-child sex -- then I would completely agree with you with no reservations at all.
 * Please recall that I said I haven't read this article. What I'm saying is that this article is clearly legitimate if it's NPOV and provided with strong warnings that WP does not explicitly or implicitly endorse or condone POV -- and very certainly WP does not endorse or condone POV for child sexual abuse.  If what you're complaining is that you feel that the current version is not appropriately NPOV, then you're in the wrong place.  This forum is for deleting articles, not rewriting them.


 * William P. Coleman (talk) 00:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Why are you writing pages of comments if you haven't even bothered to read the article? Read it, then come back. Avruch talk 00:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm doing it because this discussion is about whether or not an article of this general kind ought to be allowed at all, not whether the present version is adequately written. I can know whether it's in theory allowable without reading it.  There are matters of principle about which I feel strongly and think I have something to say.  I'm avoiding reading it because I dislike the subject -- and because I don't want to muddy the issue being discussed (namely, deletion) with the other, separate potential issue: does it need rewriting to be NPOV?  If it just needs rewriting then people should  be discussing on its talk page or, if necessary, in arbitration -- but not here. William P. Coleman (talk) 00:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The question is "Should this specific article be deleted now?" not "Should some article, perhaps one similar to this in some fashion, someday exist". I don't see how you can justify participating in a deletion discussion of an article you haven't even reviewed. Avruch talk 00:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It's a simple principle:
 * A specific article could be edited to make it better or unobjectionable.
 * An article that's in principle wrong can only be deleted.


 * One side in this debate is maintaining that the article is in principle wrong -- but the evidence they give is only that they don't think it's NPOV.


 * I thought I was being helpful by clarifying that. Also there's a general principle that one side shouldn't be able to call its own POV a "fact" and their opponents' POV a "POV."  I don't think I need to read the article to understand that principle -- and I thought I was acting as a voice of reason to point it out.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by William P. Coleman (talk • contribs) 00:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What is going on with this AfD?
Is it just me, or has the structure and purpose of this AfD gotten very confusing all of a sudden? Comments are being moved all over the place, some commentary is being deemed inappropriate for the main AfD page and is thus relocated out-of-order to the Talk Page, and statements are getting put into a number of collapsible menus. Why all this pointless moving of commentary? I've seen AfD pages longer than this one, so what's so special here? Furthermore, the header at the top explicitly says that this AfD is for discussing whether or not the article "Adult-child sex" is appropriate for Wikipedia. If this is true, why is there a statement (also near the top) that informs everyone that this page is for discussing the deletion nomination, and not the article's content, and that "inappropriate" commentary will be moved to the Talk Page? Isn't the content directly relevant to why an article should remain or be deleted? For instance, one comment of mine was a direct response to the assertion that ACS is a POV fork and that it should be deleted on those grounds. How come the initial comment making that assertion remained on the main AfD page, and my comment got moved here? In fact, I'm not following the logic behind moving any comments to this Talk Page. As such, I'm moving my comment back to the main page, and asking others not to move it back here without good reason. I honestly don't think there's a need to move any comments here, unless something is really inappropriate. But then, if that's the case, commentary like that is usually either deleted or moved elsewhere. The thing is that this AfD is becoming almost impossible to follow, with all the needless and confusing relocation of information and responses. ~ Homologeo (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Whatever were the motivations, I agree that this is getting very hard to follow with all the moving stuff around. While content is certainly an issue also in AfD discussions, I can see that bringing hard, sourced data and quoting sophisticated reasonings results in long posts, which is why many of my posts were moved here. In any way, I'd feel better about this if the mainpage of the AfD would receive a message at the top that any closing admin(s) should also consider "all those posts moved to the talkpage for their longevity". --TlatoSMD (talk) 15:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As long as actual votes and the arguments that accompany them aren't being tampered with (and I don't believe that has happened) then IMO it is fine to be moving stuff not directly involved to talk. I am sure the closing admin will read it all and it isn't that unusual for this to happen on disputed afds, indeed isn't that why project pages have talk pages. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems all in order to me - it assists the process to have discussion occur outside the venue, and the project talk page for the AfD is the best location for that. Orderinchaos 18:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts...
I really don't envy the admin who has the job of closing this AFD. After posting my comment, I read through the others, and they seem to be divided exactly 50-50 between Keep and Delete messages. Under such circumstances, I have a horrible feeling that a result of no consensus is inevitable; but equally inevitably, that just means we'll be returning to this topic in three to six months' time, and having all the same arguments all over again. That's going to carry on until there's a clear, policy-based consensus to support one outcome: keeping or deletion, and I just can't see that happening any time soon.

It took GNAA 14 AFD nominations, if I recall, before it was finally deleted. I really hope this article doesn't end up breaking that record; but I wouldn't be altogether surprised. Terraxos (talk) 06:16, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It wouldn't surprise me if it was AfD'd in even less time than that. It almost seems to me like there are some people who won't even sleep until they get this thing deleted. I think it's sad that someone would be willing to nominate an article up to 14 times to get it deleted. The only thing that tells me is that 13 out of 14 times it was voted to be kept and 1 out of the 14 times it was voted to be deleted. So because the delete vote was the last one then that's the one that counts? That's not right. Ospinad (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2008 (UTC)