This AfD underwent a deletion review, at which the result was endorsed.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Keilana|Parlez ici 01:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adult-child sex

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Attention

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Many extended comments have been moved from this page to the talk page. Please, if you are going to discuss in extended comments the subject of the article (rather than the subject of its deletion) direct yourself to the talk page here or of the article itself. Avruchtalk 00:27, 20 January 2008 '(UTC)


AfDs for this article:
Adult-child sex (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

AfD Votes and Discussion

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POV fork created by a pro-pedophile advocate in the middle of a redirect deletion discussion which was in favour of deletion. I don't care if the page is deleted or redirected to child sexual abuse but this POV fork has created nothing but controversy from day 1. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - This is true. When the user that started this article did so, it was just a stub, and the article has grown extensively since. Besides, the assertion made by SqueakBox that that user was a pro-pedophile advocate has not been corroborated. Furthermore, despite the above claim to the contrary, there has never been consensus to redirect or delete. If the quality of the article is at question, there's plenty of opportunities to improve it. ~ Homologeo (talk) 20:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, it actually has been SqueakBox's assertion that this article is a POV fork. Here SqueakBox is the first editor to drop the F-bomb on this article, back on 26 October. He makes the same assertion several more times: [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. It's likely that there are more, but the diffs show that the POV fork issue has been pushed along by SqueakBox. To now say that it's not SqueakBox's assertion runs counter to the facts. --SSBohio 00:49, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Redirect to Pedophilia - covers the same topic. Mostlyharmless (talk) 20:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - Except that it doesn't cover the same topic. Adult-child sex is a broader topic than pedophilia, encompassing both pedophile and non-pedophile instances, including cultures and times where there was no conception of pedophilia. --SSBohio 21:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Nothing of the sort going on here. The first afd did not vote overwhelmingly for keep, indeed the redirects and deletes between them were much larger. Since thenm the article has poroduced nothing but controversy with a small group resisting any change hook anbd dagger. its standard practice to nominate controversial articles more than once, Daniel Brandt was nominated 14 times before deletion and that isnt a record. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment...And even if it didn't, that response is still indicative of an intent to disrupt constructive editing of an article. We are supposed to be building an encyclopedia, not deconstructing one. See, WP:POINT and WP:GAME. --Strothra (talk) 21:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Sourcing my above statement on prior requests for delete/merge/redirect (in addition to those RfD two links in that box above), see here, here, here, and here. Both the nominator and Pol64 have just today been warned by several admins of likely getting blocked for another attempt to unilterally re-direct as they have tried numerous times even way beyond the many official requests I have just linked. --TlatoSMD (talk) 20:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment That is clearly not true. There were 4 independent attempts by 4 separate editors to resolve this issue and I was only involved int he first of those 4. The reason we need another afd is because so many editors oppose this article's existence. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. SqueakBox, you have been ever present in the attempt to undermine sourced material in this article. I am not aware of what you refer to when you mention four independent attempts to resolve some issue, but even if this is true, it would certainly undermine the sheer ferocity with which you have attempted to destroy this article. This has at times reached the level of claiming that opposing editors must either be sockpuppets or pedophile activists, thus elevating your opinion above theirs.
  • May I also add that the current article is nothing like it was a while ago, and nothing like the draft proposed by TlatoSMD. SqueakBox's constant, unjustified blanking of sourced material actually betters his case for deletion. digitalemotion 21:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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  • Comment - Merkinsmum, I would likewise urge you to be careful with statements such as this. Civility is very important and rash generalizations should not be thrown around haphazardly, especially when discussing controversial subjects like adult-child sex. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:57, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Wikipedia is not concerned with what "paedos" call something or not, but rather a neutral account of each and every prevalent subject, however controversial it is. This will include a full appreciation of the fact that sexual contact between adults and children has a history and cross-cultural spectrum of variation that spans wildly beyond the current medical conception of child sexual abuse, however valid that conception indeed is. GrooV (talk) 21:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The issue of a purported "POV fork" has been addressed a number of times within the proposals I have linked, all ending with no consensus for delete/merge/redirect, and where even ten people or more said that the current article for Child Sexual Abuse is a "POV fork" as it should limit itself exclusively to legal aspects. The reason why the official article currently looks as poor as it does (especially in comparison to the existing drafts) is the same as why those people who keep removing copious, well-sourced material have been reprimanded today by admins. --TlatoSMD (talk) 21:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Just because an issue has been discussed before doesn't mean it's been solved. Just because no consensus was reached last time doesn't mean that a consensus can't be reached this time. I see no good reason to keep this article, as the material can and should be covered in other articles related to the subject. Rray (talk) 21:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It seems as if this is the 2nd nomination for deletion, which doesn't seem excessive to me. Consensus can change over time, and three months seems to be a reasonable amount of time to wait to bring the matter up again. The editors being warned about being blocked seems irrelevant to me as to whether or not this article should be kept. The material in the article, and the material that could reasonably expect to be added to the article, can and should all be covered in the other articles on this subject. So the article has no reason to exist. Rray (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As I said, this might only be the second AfD, but several dozen of people reached no consensus in 15 to 20 delete/merge/redirect proposal polls to favor any of those proposed options. --TlatoSMD (talk) 22:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Its been nowhere near several dozen. Please stop propagating this falsehood unless you are willing to back it mup with diffs. When I last counted about a week ago there were 17 people involved (not including admins in their role as admins or blocked users), you'd need ato prove at least twice that number were involved or you are simply exagerrasting. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:54, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I read what you wrote previously, but that doesn't change the fact that there is support for deletion, and this is the appropriate venue at which to discuss deletion. Rray (talk) 23:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update -- The article has undergone a remarkable improvement in quality of writing and quantity of sources. It is (IMO) better now than in the version I linked to above. Anyone who made their judgment based on an earlier version of the article would be well-advised to look at the article now. --SSBohio 23:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • True its given enough time but did not develop due to whatever reason. Topic is very sensitive under law, and should be treated somewhat like WP:BLP, unless in good shape its better to delete. Neutrality is highly called for, and the article can be developed in user space and recreated after DRV. Currently merging/redirecting to neutral title Age disparity in sexual relationships would be appropriate, since in contrast, same-aged-minors-sex (no age disparity) is permitted under law. Again the merging, rather than just redirect, would be met with resistance by opposing users. Voiced axix (talk) 05:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's quite an accusation. Do you have evidence of the propaganda purposes of me and the other editors? Also, I just reviewed the Wikisposure article you cite. It appears to be an attempt to galvanize on-wiki reaction by opponents of the pedophiles it identifies rather than (as implied above) an attempt by pedophiles to organize against this project. Wouldn't a site listing Wikipedians who are supposedly pedophiles be a form of attack site? --SSBohio 14:59, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm sorry but are you seriously basing your argument on the sayings of a site spawned by Perverted-Justice? As likely everyone who's been involved with PAW articles already knows, PJ has been saying negative and shady stuff like this for quite a while, jumping on anyone not quick enough to lynch editors that dare not practice their anti-pedophile vigilante methods. It would indeed help your own case to base arguments on substantiated evidence and article quality, instead of linking to attack sites. ~ Homologeo (talk) 07:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


  • NOTE: Page is vastly improved, expanded, formatted, and even referenced since the AfD began (again). Of course, the same justification for keep exists... WP:Notability, WP:Reliable Sources, and WP:Verifiability are all met, and met well, as evidenced by the 50+ references and 40,406 bytes article size. The structure of the article also was overhauled to hopefully allow for more and better expansion as well as help push a NPOV (section on abuse, section on non-abuse, section on history, section on modern, etc...). VigilancePrime (talk) 08:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the entirety of what a POV fork is, see WP:CFORK. Maybe it would also be accurate to describe this as a platform for WP:SOAP. Most POV forks needn't/usually don't contain entirely the same subject matter as the main article, but what is contained in them is decided by what propounds a point of view, with selective parts of the main subject or tangents of it covered without the correct context of the majority view/other views in the main article. Merkinsmum 12:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And how does "Adult-child sex" prevent the correct context from being used, or how does it avoid a neutral point of view (which is at the definition of a POV fork)? And how is it a soapbox? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I collapsed some sections of extended discussion because for some reason a few editors think its necessary to respond to every delete vote with the same arguments, slightly rewritten and a little bit longer than last time. Consider the possibility that people just disagree with you. Avruchtalk 15:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that it are not only those who argue to keep the article that have been doing this. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 15:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Avruch, I understand how well-intended your edits were; What I had trouble with was the edits' instructing editors not to edit in those sections. Also, the first collapsed section (AFAIK) is the only section in which RRay or I have discussed whether I could characterize my !vote as Speedy Keep. I don't see where we've been repeating it elsewhere. However, I've considered the possibility that you disagree with me about that, and that's ok. --SSBohio 16:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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EDIT: I have now also been informed that the site I, as did others way up here, linked to contains spyware. --TlatoSMD (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's no spyware on those pages, that website runs the same software as Wikipedia - it even has the MediaWiki.org link on the bottom of the page. It's nothing but html, css and javascript. No way could that page install spyware on your computer when you simply view the text. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What effect would one presume this kind of organised networking has on the final outcome of a vote such as this? GrooV (talk) 19:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think any evidence of organised networking offsite and online would need to be brought here, certainly no evidence at wikiexposure of that going on but it may be happening in boy and girl chat forums. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also cannot see any direct evidence of parachuting, but from my limited experience of the forums concerned, Boy Chat and Girl Chat are both open Pedophile forums (any encouragement would be noticed and reported) whilst Wikisposure is allied to some sort of private linear style messageboard.
What amuses me about the wikisposure page is that it claims that the article under discussion was created by Boy Chat, which is a well known messageboard for pedophiles, and not an organisation. The guy who created the article (User:A.Z.) is a ninteen-year-old gay Brazilian male with a long history of non-pedophile-related participation at Wikipedia. GrooV (talk) 20:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have actually decided not to edit some days, because I have gone through this in real life before and do not want to face it again. Really, this is my main objection to the way that this article has been managed. The ad hominem has to stop before someone is "sniffed out" by Wikisposure and gets a brick through their window. GrooV (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
lol, see [9] (Category:Pederasty -something going on with my wikilinks) - we have [10](Category:Pederasty in ancient Greece), Pederasty in the Renaissance etc and so on. There's no shortage or suppression of paedophilia articles and about the history of it - probably there are other categories and subcategories too. Look at them all- hardly Orwellian suppression. But this article consists of cherry-picked ideas designed to forward an implied POV. Several sites have said that wiki is paedo-enabling and some were even banned because they were trying to use Wikipedia to pull kids on here.Merkinsmum 23:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that this is conceptually difficult to grasp – but you aren't the first, so no need to feel embarrassed. Pedophilia is a label assigned in order to categorize. It says nothing about the two-way interpersonal relationships involved. 'Adult-child sex', on the other hand, constitutes a form of relationship between two individuals. Treating the two concepts as identical would be the equivalent of treating 'the state of being an athlete' and 'the carrying out of a game of tennis' as identical/interchangeable terms.
As for the “paedo-enabling” claim, as you eloquently put it, it is patently clear why websites might be suggesting that...in order to influence the outcome of discussions such as this, to accord with their agenda. No doubt it you were to mention any of those websites names, that would become obvious.Strichmann (talk) 00:24, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. another editor mentioned this search in reply to my !vote below. I replied there; the gist is that when the word "abuse" is omitted from the Goggle Scholar search for the article title term, the result goes down to only 38 pages. And the Google Scholar search for "child sexual abuse" brings in 35,600 pages. Search URLs and context are in my reply below. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 10:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to your logic it would but if one thinks you are wrong iand that the article should be CSA to describe ACS as a fork would be entirely logical. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Take a leaf out of your book? How so? My only interest is our neutrality policy, perhaps you would care to take a leaf out of my book as NPOVG is my primary motivation here. Thanks, SqueakBox 04:57, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, it isn't. It is a tireless crusade against anything remotely resembling pedophilia, which, granted, is a noble cause, however, it has nothing to do with neutrality, or building an encyclopedia. You have repeatedly accused good-faith editors who were working towards such a neutrality as being "pro-pedophile activists", acted against consensus and are arguably doing anything BUT act in the interests of the neutrality policy. A review of your edits and comments here make this clear. DEVS EX MACINA pray —Preceding comment was added at 05:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment And some have been so digusted by that and other tactics of the cabal that they have ceased editing the article out of concern for their safety and fear of being branded pro-pedophile.[13] Pairadox (talk) 07:06, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would also point out that I have received a death threat off site but online concerning my edits to these pedophile articles so if this is happening it is happening on all sides. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:42, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment To put this into context, the "death threat" against Squeak literally was the opinion that he "needs fixing". --TlatoSMD (talk) 16:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • VOTE CHANGE:DELETE - If Squeaky will allow me to change my vote to the vote he is crusading for, and hyper-zealous admins will allow me to say why I am doing so, I would like to Change My Vote from Strong Keep to Strong Delete. The reason: This issue will never be settled. I stand by my earlier factual comments (and all the links that I provided to prove the point). This article will be deleted, it's just a matter of time, and the personal attacks, intimidation, and harrassment are not worth it. Therefore, Strong Delete per WP:STEAM. (Really, it's the only way to end this war. SSB and Pair are correct about it, above.) VigilancePrime (talk) 09:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reasoning behind the change in VigilancePrime's vote was, for some weird reason, removed from this page. However, if anyone wishes to read it, please direct your attention to this diff.

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The title itself is the core issue. As long as the article exists, it will be a magnet for trouble and confusion, because it mixes together separate topics: (1) adults sexually using pre-pubetry children for sex (for example toddlers and very young schoolchildren), and (2) sex between adults and post-puberty adolescents. Joining these different topics under the name "Adult-child sex" obscures the two meanings and implies they are the same, which they are not.
Every mainstream psychology association, child protection organization, governments around the world, and the vast majority of researchers and clinicians agree that all sexual interactions of adults and children is "child sexual abuse", with thousands of references supporting. The fringe term "adult-child sex" appears in only a few sources, and the webpages that quote them, giving the impression of more support for the term than actually exists. Wikipedia should not have an article with the title "adult-child sex" because it's misleading original research, and not verifiable. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 08:44, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is of course a complete misrepresentation of facts. The vast majority of researchers and clinicians agree the opposite: that adult-child sex is not inherently abusive (in the linguistically correct sense of the term). Before the ACS article was distorted by vested interests, the talk page listed in excess of 100 academic sources confirming that point. There were no scholarly sources listed in support of your misrepresentation, with the vague exception of Finkelhor (who in fact does not support your claim, but concedes that he argues against all adult-child sexual relationships not because they are inherently abusive but based on his (necessarily subjective) personal morality). If there are "thousands of references" supporting your claim in so far as "the majority of researchers and clinicians" are concerned, why were none of them ever presented (despite the request of editors)?
In any event, this discussion is not about the myths surrounding adult-child sexual encounters, but about whether the article is a topic in its own right. The fact that it is an umbrella term for possible interactions between two individuals is self-evident. Concepts such as 'pedophilia', 'pederasty' and 'child sexual abuse' may share some degree of overlap as possible manifestations or constructions of 'adult-child sex', but they are nevertheless separate and distinct.
'Adult-child sex is no more a “POV fork” of 'child sexual abuse' than 'heterosexual sex' would be a POV fork of 'rape'. --Strichmann 09:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Interrupted discussion thread. The above comment posted in reply to my !vote previously had extensive discussion, with replies from myself and several editors. The whole thread was moved to the talk page by another editor, and now the above has been restored here by its original poster, but without the rest of the thread. To avoid moving the long thread back here again, here's the link to where it was moved: Talk page, Discussion 5. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:30, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The comment was moved, unilaterally, off this discussion page, which would give the distorted appearance to anyone reading this discussion that Jack-A-Roe's arguments to delete were unchallenged. Whatever the motivation may have been for doing so, it could give the appearance of authoritarian censorship. Please do me the courtesy of not moving my comments. Strichmann (talk) 09:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No-one tried to give a distorted impression. The person who moved your comment did it as part of an overall cleanup of the packed page. Your words and all the responses that followed were moved along with five other long discussions that are now all on the talk page. So don't take it personally, no-one tried to undermine your response. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 10:10, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. There are several articles that address the above [Greek-history-and-philosophy-related] topics in extensive depth: Pederasty, Pederasty in ancient Greece, Philosophy of Greek pederasty, Pederasty in the modern world, Platonic love, and more. The article under nomination for deletion is not needed to cover those topics any further. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC) [re-edited to clarify, because from the discussion below, apparently my reply here was read in a different way than I intended it. Also, when I wrote it there were other comments above the post I replied to, that have since been moved to the talk page. The follow-up discussion below was written before I added this re-edit note, and, in retrospect I find it a digression, and I should not have replied to it at all. I stand by my original statement of my !vote to delete, for the reasons I stated.]--Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jack-A-Roe, if there are parts of the articles you mention that largely deal with adult-child sex, then it would make sense and benefit the project to incorporate, or at least summarize, them within the ACS article. ~ Homologeo (talk) 07:58, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not needed? By that logic the article on pederasty isn't needed because it's already covered in more detail in other sub articles like the ones you mentioned, or that the article on the United States is not needed because there's already an article for each of the 50 states. Ospinad (talk) 22:22, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, that's not what I wrote. States are not POV forks of the USA. My reply was about the specific content the above user described. Maybe he hasn't seen those articles, I don't know. But "adult-child sex" is a POV fork of child sexual abuse, expressing the POV that adults using children for sex is not abuse. That's a classic POV fork. If it were not, there would not be so much emotional argument about the topic. This whole discussion is driven by POV. And there is more than one viewpoint; some people don't find adult-child sex to be abusive to the child. That's a POV, so it can be mentioned in the main article with due weight, but it's a fringe view and doesn't belong in a separate article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. And there's also many other people in this poll who find that it's CSA that's the POV fork, so there's not even a consensus on that. --TlatoSMD (talk) 22:46, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that is what you wrote. I understand that you have (at least) two different reasons for wanting this article deleted. 1. You think it's a POV fork. 2. You think it's existence is unnecessary because the same material is already covered in other articles. In the post that I was replying to you didn't mention anything about a POV fork. I was responding to your reason #2. You said, "There are several articles that address the above topics in extensive depth." Then you listed a bunch of articles pertaining to pederasty. Then you said that this article is not needed because those topics are already covered in those articles. That says nothing about it being a POV fork. My use of the analogy of the 50 states of America was to compare it too your analogy of the subject of pederasty being spread over multiple articles. An article is "not needed" only when two articles consist of much of the same information. If one article is being used to summarize many different articles then it's not right to say that the article is not needed, even if everything in the summary article is already covered in all of the sub-articles but in more depth. Otherwise the article for pederasty or for the United States wouldn't be needed for that same reason. That was my point. As far as your argument about it being a POV fork, I think you are mistaking what a POV fork is. The belief that "adult-child sex is harmful" and "adult-child sex is not harmful" are both POV beliefs. One is much more popular than the other, of course, but that doesn't make the more common one any less of a POV. Unpopular beliefs are not the only ones that should be labeled POV. To keep an article NPOV doesn't mean that the amount of article space used to describe each belief should correspond to the popularity of those beliefs. You'll see that the article for Holocaust denial isn't smaller (nor should it be) than the article for Criticism of Holocaust denial even though Holocaust deniers are in a very small minority. To keep articles NPOV and not give undue weight to unpopular beliefs means that it should be made clear in the article which beliefs are the dominant ones and which ones are not. If 50% of an article is dedicated to a belief that is shared by 1% of the population and the other half to the more popular one then that is not wrong as long as it's made clear which one is which. Ospinad (talk) 01:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that's not a perspective I've ever heard of before now, is all I can say. But maybe I don't mix in the same circles all that often. Merkinsmum 23:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. You don't need to "mix in certain circles" to find statements that the title Adult-child sex is NPOV, all you need to do is being able to read and scroll up and down all over this poll! By Jove, allthroughout this poll I'm feeling like I'm talking to people that have a problem with the fact that I'm able to read and to abundantly source my statements. --TlatoSMD (talk) 23:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Child sexual abuse is harmful is only a POV in the same sense that smoking is harmful is a POV. In both cases, it is a statement of POV, and in both cases it's a POV that enjoys a tremendous degree of support. Neither article is a POV fork, and even though the child sexual abuse article has a POV in its title, it's not a POV fork either. On this point, Tlato & I part company. --SSBohio 00:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I agree I've been carried a bit overboard with the heated tone of this poll, so in order to clarify I'd like to echo somebody else here (William P. Coleman?) who said that the statement "All ACS is CSA" is just as much a POV as the opposing statement "No kind of ACS whatsoever is harmful". Without subscribing to either of those, I only intended to remind people that within this poll and elsewhere, we don't even seem to find anything remotely resembling a consensus on the first of the two statements. --TlatoSMD (talk) 17:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many extended comments have been moved from this page to the talk page. Please, if you are going to discuss in extended comments the subject of the article (rather than the subject of its deletion) direct yourself to the talk page here or of the article itself. Avruchtalk 00:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, you certainly can't maintain that my not having read the article makes me ineligible for a discussion of whether an article of this general kind (rather than this particular version) should be allowed to exist.

Lastly, you're unreasonable to complain that my comments are too long. It keeps being emphasized that this is not a vote -- so I'd think that thoughtful comment and argument were desired over brief statements of opinion. William P. Coleman (talk) 00:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is value in being concise, but I wasn't 'complaining' that your comments specifically were too long. What is unclear about limiting the deletion page to !votes for or against deletion, and moving the other argumentation to the talk page? As I said on the talk page - if you haven't read the article, how are you qualified to determine whether it should exist? You're basically arguing that the title of the article should remain. Thats nonsense. Read it, return. Avruchtalk 00:53, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you will read the box above (the one with the big red exclamation point), it says, "please note that this is not a majority vote."
I'm not arguing for the title. My reasons are in my comments. William P. Coleman (talk) 01:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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  • But that's the point - adult-child sex has not been considered "child sexual abuse" throughout history. In fact, the view that sexual relations between an adult and a child are inherently abusive is a very modern perspective. To state otherwise, is to skew the truth and to deny what was true in the past. Thus, discussing adult-child sex in an article that focuses exclusively on the contemporary take on child sexual abuse is quite inappropriate. ~ Homologeo (talk) 02:41, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not at all. Given that adult-child sex is inherently abusive (and we can hardly write encyclopedia articles from anything other than today's perspective), the fact that it was once considered otherwise might well be a suitable point under the heading of History of thought on child sexual abuse, but does not merit a separate article making that claim as if it were true. MikeHobday (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • By only discussing the topic in an article entitled child sexual abuse, we limit ourselves to only considering adult-child sex within one paradigm. In the social sciences, one can either consider a cultural phenomenon from the emic perspective or the etic perspective. Child sexual abuse is an emic view: it only tells us what the topic signifies within the frame of reference of how we look at it now. When we discuss adult-child sex, we bring an etic perspective to the phenomenon: until (roughly) the Victorian era, even our own culture didn't have the concept of children as anything other than small adults, criminally responsible for their own actions and capable of work.
    None of this even addresses perspectives outside the West. In some societies, betrothals and marriages take place even among toddlers, and consummated marriages between adults and children as young as 9 or 10 are culturally normal in others.
    Does that make any of this non-abusive? Of course not! But, even so, the etic perspective can't be met by only framing what modern Western people think of a topic. That doesn't make the act less abusive; It makes our understanding of it that much greater. --SSBohio 21:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are agreeing that the act is abusive. Hence there is no POV problem in it beign poart of an article with such a name. You say there are other perspectives (say, historical or from other cultures). So the article could include sections describing/discussing such perspectives. But that does not, in any way, negate the case for deleting this article and including appropriate text within the child sexual abuse article. MikeHobday (talk) 21:10, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article, as it stands right now, is significantly different from the stub it was when originally created. Thus, arguing that it should be deleted on the grounds that some users suspect the article's initial creator of being a pro-pedophile activist does not provide sufficient reasoning for deletion. Furthermore, such suspicions have never been corroborated, and the fact that the editor that started this article was banned has no weight when considering the legitimacy of keeping the article in its current state. Besides, there is no official evidence to suggest that the editor was banned because of this article's creation. Finally, an editor's personal qualities should not be used against his or her ability to contribute to Wikipedia, as long as no disruptive editing takes place. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article is definitely not a POV fork as some allege. Although this issue has been discussed many times before, the following is a brief overview of why it's inappropriate to merge or redirect "Adult-child sex" (ACS) to either "Child sexual abuse" (CSA) or "Pedophilia." 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 CSA would not work because that article deals almost exclusively with the contemporary popular medical and legal description of CSA. As such, CSA does not address how various peoples and societies viewed ACS during different time periods. Truth be told, the article on CSA cannot deal with such information, because the term "child sexual abuse" is a distinctly modern development, and ACS was not viewed as inherently abuse in times past. Simply put, ACS covers a broader topic than CSA, and thus should be discussed in an article of its own. 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) 03:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Despite what some editors claim, there has never been consensus to delete, redirect, or merge with another article. It is true that several editors have attempted on a number of occasions to achieve such an end, but their actions were always carried out without any consensus on the matter. The article has been redirected, merged, and almost deleted (through deletion of great chunks of legitimate text) in the past, but this was done contrary to standard Wikipedia procedure. Every time something like this occurred, clear opposition to such changes was seen from many editors, and the article was restored (sometimes by administrators) in some shape or form. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the quality of this article is in question, there's plenty of room for improvement. As long as editors behave in a civil manner, and concerns about content and structure are dealt with according to standard Wikipedia policies, then there's no reason why this article cannot continue to mature and become an exemplary demonstration of what Wikipedia is all about. Blatantly deleting information, without giving others an opportunity to verify the deletions or to respond to claims of poor sourcing, and then redirecting without consensus is definitely not the way to improve this article. Likewise, renaming the article in order to purge huge chunks of it is also quite unfair to both the article and the editors that put in the time to improve the text. The point should be not to delete, redirect, or merge at all costs, or to prune, rename, and then prune some more, but to roll up one's sleeves and try hard to produce a quality product. This does not mean that concerns about sourcing, NPOV, and due weight of viewpoints should be disregarded. On the contrary, a controversial article such as this requires strict scrutiny. However, this does not mean that deletion should be advocated no matter what. If there are legitimate concerns, they should be listed, appropriate templates put into place, and reasonable time given for involved editors to address whatever problems are noticed within the article. Because of some editors' inability or unwillingness to wait for others to respond to radical alterations in the text and concerns over a variety of issues, the article has suffered numerous undue setbacks, which largely explain why the growth and improvement of this piece have halted. Once again, there are many ways in which this article can be improved. Information from prior versions, such as this, can be reincorporated (with proper editing and sourcing) into the article. What's more, a few editors have been working on their own, and sometimes with the assistance of others, on improving the ACS article on Sandbox pages. Two prominent examples can be seen here and here. Sure, extra referencing may be in order, some block quotes need to be paraphrased, and caution must be taken that NPOV and other policies are observed, but isn't this what editing on Wikipedia is all about? In addition to all this, there is plenty of other information out there on the topic of adult-child sex. Let's work towards making this into an article we can be proud of, instead of trying to bury it for no good reason. Besides, this could be a great success just yet, for if Wikipedians can fairly and neutrally treat such a controversial subject, there's pretty much nothing this project can't handle! ~ Homologeo (talk) 04:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This article has been through various forms, but its problem remains constant. The current situation is that the Adult-child sex article, despite being sourced, acknowledges the modern majority view as such but spends almost no time at all discussing it. Some of the article deals with a historical perspective or gives background information; that seems okay to me. The rest is a variety of perspectives - sourced ones, yes - designed to highlight as much as possible that might suggest that the "Adult-Child Sex is abusive/wrong/bad" persepctive might be wrong. We have a detailed discussion of Rind et al. (1998), David Finkelhor's statements that most support the minority viewpoint, we have a random out of nowhere quote from a psychiatrist suggesting that our view on the subject is too modern-centric, we highlight the child marriage laws of Yemen, we have a tangent about the sexual practices of Bonobos, and we highlight the extremely marginal French petition against age of consent laws: a collection of topics chosen to highlight the perspective that Adult-child sex is not wrong, or at least to imply that that perspective is as acceptable as its counterpart, despite that being an overwhelming majority viewpoint. Put another way, the article is in argument form: "Many believe X. Some believe Y, because A, B, C, D, and E." This is how you write when you want to question the majority belief. In other words, this article is EXTREMELY out of balance - not a little, not somewhat, but the balance issue is extreme. See WP:NPOV#Undue weight. The way I see it, this article started, became, and has remained like this while an argument takes place over whether "Child sexual abuse" or "Adult-child sex" is the more reasonable title -- regardless of which is correct, the two articles do in fact cover the same material but from very different points of view. This is why Adult-child sex is a POV fork and must be deleted. These problems could, in theory be fixed by editing the article, but after 3 AfDs and a huge amount of controversy and discussion, the problems remain, so deletion is really the only way to solve the problem. Mangojuicetalk 05:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The contemporary majority viewpoint is appropriately stated at the very top and is accordingly given more space in the article than anything else. This is what "due weight" within Wikipedia's NPOV policy is all about. If there's a worry that this is not enough information about child sexual abuse, then, by all means, editors are free to propose to expand that section. However, considering that there is an entire separate article on that topic, there doesn't seem to be a point in needlessly duplicating chunks of information. As for your assertion that the text takes a roundabout way of promoting a minority viewpoint, your own reasoning contradicts this claim. You state that it's appropriate to provide historical and background information, but then assert that providing examples of different views on adult-child sex is somehow wrong and disingenuous. The matter of fact is that ACS existed and had viewpoints attached to it long before the coming of the modern era, and perspectives have a tendency to change over time. Pointing out various takes on ACS throughout history is quite fitting for an encyclopedia article on the topic. Likewise, as long as perspectives are attached to their proper sources, there is nothing wrong with briefly stating views that are in opposition to the stance the contemporary majority takes on ACS. Other cultures, outside of the developed countries, as well as scholars in disagreement with mainstream professionals, do indeed have real opinions on matters such as this, and these need to be accounted for. Finally, even if, at some point, the two articles in question need to be merged together - which I maintain would be very inappropriate - CSA should then be merged into ACS, and not the other way around, seeing as the latter incorporates the entire subject matter of the former, and effectively deals with a much broader topic. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mangojuice stated it very well. And sure, history, other cultures, and dissenting views can all be presented in the child sexual abuse article, they can and should be addressed. Per WP:NPOV that's where they belong, all in the same article. Not in a POV fork to a misleading title that appears to normalize a fringe theory. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (resp. to Homologeo) What I was trying to say is that some of the historical stuff is okay. Specifically, the part from "Cultures and History" up to the next header is fine. The rest of that section is very badly balanced and it is NOT a cultural discussion nor a historical one. The subsection on "difficulty of researching" seems quite out of place, with a long quote when a citation would do -- and note how the quote plays into the pro-pedophile viewpoint. The subsection on "across cultures" might be okay, but the single example of Yemen doesn't do a good job illustrating the "minority of countries" described earlier. The "Sexuality in other mammals" section is entirely irrelevant, and really pushes things -- it's as if there aren't enough counterexamples to the majority view in history or human culture, so the author has to bring in other species: the link to the issue in humans is completely omitted, and is obviously not a part of this subject. Similarly, the "Legal issues" section is badly out of whack -- it exclusively discusses the same topic as Age of consent and yet it spends nearly half its time on an obscure petition; contrast this with the coverage in Age of consent itself, in which that petition is never mentioned.
  • My point is that this is not a neutral and reasonable look at the topic, it has some parts that are okay, but it is largely a framework in which to present pro-pedophile activist arguments. As for whether CSA should be merged into ACS or vice versa, bickering over the title and which title goes with which topic is NOT the point -- that is how this extremely out-of-balance article has managed to continue to exist all this time. Myself, I think the best title is Age disparity in sexual relationships, and I recognize the deficiency of the Child sexual abuse title/topic, and yet I would rather have this one deleted now than allow it to exist for another several months in this kind of state, which the last several months of inertia indicate will persist if the issue is not settled. Mangojuicetalk 06:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. All of the recent points by Mangojuice, Librarianofages, and Jack have been addressed before, so for now I'll keep it briefly at commenting at what Mangojuice calls "a random out of nowhere quote from a psychiatrist". When Feierman authored that quote, he had 20 years of professional experience working with AoC offenders. The book that quote is from, Pedophilia: Biosocial dimensions, was edited and prefaced by him, published by the professional science publishing house Springer-Verlag, while being a collective work by the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (publisher of Journal of Sex Research and Annual Review of Sex Research; see for their involvement with this book here, under the headline Researching "Touchy" Sex Topics). "Two dozen" internationally renowned members of the professional SSSS contributed to that book: See complete table of content. The fact that book, as many other works by scientists, "plays into the pro-pedophile viewpoint" comes as no surprise as that which is commonly perceived as a "pro-pedophile viewpoint" is pretty much exclusively existing and on-going scientific material and discourse. --TlatoSMD (talk) 06:25, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • And yet, there is no reason to include the quote verbatim. As a reference, I'm sure it is fine. But the inclusion of the full text of the quote manipulates the balance of the article by giving even more space to an argument to broaden our perspective. Remember, my issue here is not at all with sourcing, but with balance, with WP:NPOV. Mangojuicetalk 15:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I will not deny that the article is not in its best shape, and that some of its sections could be retitled and reworked. However, that's no reason to condemn the entire piece. Besides, the article is not progressing the way it could be, and is in need of improvement, not because of the subject matter or lack of information on it, but because of a consistent effort on the part of several editors to see this article laid to waste. As pointed out in the reasoning provided for my Keep vote above, there's a great deal of information that can still be incorporated into this article. There are prior versions that have text that can be reincorporated, as well as independent projects by individual editors, where they compiled a great deal of literature appropriate for this topic. As for your claim that this is a piece of pro-pedophile advocacy, I still disagree with you on the grounds explained earlier. Furthermore, the flaws in other articles, such as the lack of information on the French petitions in "Age of consent," does not mean that "Adult-child sex" should also be in poor shape and disregard appropriate important information. Next, to address your concern about the mentioning of practices in Yemen, if this example if not enough, that's the more reason to expand the article, not to delete it. Finally, how is discussion of adult-child sex in other mammals irrelevant to an article on exactly that - adult-child sex? Or would you rather split this article into two - "Adult-child sex (among humans)" and "Adult-child sex (among non-human mammals)"? ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Of course, this has to be the first topic that can be legitimately included in more than one article. (Please don't be offended by the sarcasm.) Besides, who said the ACS article should be limited to human sexuality? ~ Homologeo (talk) 08:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Jack, that issue was done weeks ago, and we settled it by a consensus to rename the article to Adult-juvenile sex, a consensus even Squeak could live with. That particular section in Animal sexual behavior could even link to our main article thereby if we'd just get this whole thing done. --TlatoSMD (talk) 15:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As to improving the article, all I can say is this: this article has such severe inertia issues that I just don't believe my points will be addressed by normal editing. The balance issues have been present in the article from day one and attempts to edit the article, and AfD discussions have not corrected it. When this article was nominated for deletion it was in a different form, that was also far out of balance. When the article was nominated for deletion last time, it was in yet another different form, still with severe balance issues. Mangojuicetalk 15:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. But I think this is a blatant case of an article that literally is in accordance with all Wikipedia policies, but which we'd really like to delete. I would suggest just deleting it under Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules. Trying to come up with contrived explanations for why it really violates the rules is going to do a lot of collateral damage as it sets ver bad precedents for other articles. Ken Arromdee (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about we just ignore the NPOV rule and leave it the way it is? Ospinad (talk) 00:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(that was supposed to be a joke)
Thanks for admitting it isn't neutral right now. And of course IAR isnt about making the encycl;opedia worse by pushing a point of view. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:25, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's no admission of any such thing in the above, Squeak. Why invent it? --SSBohio 01:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It sounded like if we don't ignore NPOV we will have to do something about it, as I stated in my opening comment as nominator. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the confusion(?), Squeak, I wasn't asking about your opening comment as nominator. I was asking why you invented an admission that didn't exist in the comment you were responding to. --SSBohio 02:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we misunderstood each other. I am saying that it sounds to me as if Ospinad were saying that we should ignore NPOV, that way we can leave the article be as a POV fork whereas I think we can't leave this POV fork be which is why I have afd'd it and indeed opposed its existence since its inception. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:27, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I knew someone wouldn't get the joke. I didn't say that I believed the article was a POV fork. I was responding to the person who wanted to ignore all the rules and just have this article deleted.. If someone who believes this article is a POV fork is willing to ignore all rules to get this article deleted because they can't get it deleted by following the rules, then does that mean we can pick and choose which rules we can ignore? If so then why can't we just ignore the NPOV rule (which you think this article violates, not me) and just leave it the way it is? It was meant to be sarcastic. It doesn't matter anyway, because I know I can count on you to keep nominating this article for AfD until you get your way. Ospinad (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"To those who think this article is acceptable: would you support the existence of an article about rape entitled 'Nonconsensual sex'? Or one about murder entitled 'Unlawful ending of human life'? Those are equivalents to this article: they have what at first appear to be 'neutral', descriptive titles, but would in fact be POV forks, since the material they would contain is already covered under better titles at rape and murder. This article is no different, and as such it should be deleted and redirected to child sexual abuse."
There has been plenty of discussion since then, but that point still stands. Delete. Terraxos (talk) 06:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rape versus Non-consensual sex. Which is more NPOV? Remember, NPOV stands for Neutral Point of View, not No Point of View. We are not required to check our brains at the door. Jehochman Talk 20:41, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
what difference does it make if some cultures accepted it? some cultures also accepted making people fight animals for entertainment. but we would not have recreational staging of human death as an overview of a whole category of human activity; what we 'might have is articles for specific instances, such as gladitorial games in ancient Rome, etc. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:36, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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