Adult-child sex – This is a difficult debate to close given the passions it has aroused on both sides; my task is complicated by the relative paucity of comments left by the closing administrator. Still, there are things to work with. Procedurally, the AfD ran for the standard length of time, and was properly closed by an administrator; administrators are not obliged to give a lengthy rationale although it's a kindness to editors and a useful cover when DRV rolls around. As to whether consensus was reached, that's trickier; although consensus does exist absent an administrator to interpret it. Numerous concerns were raised over this article being a POV fork, and given the similarity between this article and related articles on the subject, and the definite minority position which this term occupies vis-a-vis other terms, and that this argument really wasn't rebutted in the debate, I think we can state with some certainty that the closing administrator was not off her rocker. Moving to the substantive issue, this review, like most reviews, has rehashed the debate (which it shouldn't, but hey) but hasn't really provided anything new. The closing administrator noted these issues on prompting, and the maintenance of a POV fork in the article namespace isn't something to be sustained over process objections, which in any event were met this time. The "ick" factor isn't relevant; the debate did not turn on whether Wikipedia will cover this issue or not. Given that, deletion endorsed, editors remanded to the existing articles on the subject. – Mackensen(talk)04:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the article above. Please do not modify it.
AFD 2nd nom resulted in a delete. Obviously heated debate and a very split consensus, again. It appears the conclusion should have been 'no consensus' as there was too many individuals with valid and supporting reasons to keep, with near equal representation of opinion on both sides of the issue. Pharmboy (talk) 01:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Éndorse deletion the article was a clear POV fork, something that was never properly dealt with by the articles supporters. Close based on policy. ViridaeTalk01:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion based on the delete rationales included in the AfD, which in my mind carried a great deal more weight of policy and common sense than the keep rationales. It was a bold move by Keilana, I felt sure that no one would be willing to brave an obviously contentious DRV by closing as anything other than no-consensus. Avruchtalk01:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As you have taken a side on this issue, what should we make of your editing others' comments at the AfD? I had considered you to be an uninvolved admin, but now, it seems I was mistaken. Being a partisan in this matter has created an appearance of impropriety in your editing discussion out of the AfD page to its talk page, s well as other actions. --SSBohio04:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I moved comments, I didn't edit them. Everything that was said remains available at the talk page. The point was to keep the discussion on track, although I wouldn't say it was wildly successful. I'll note that while I moved comments without regard to whether they were from deleters or keepers, I voted delete in the AfD first. Avruchtalk13:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
William P. Coleman seemed to think he had been edited. He objected strongly to having his comments edited (my word)/moved (your word). In fact, he cited it as part of his rationale for leaving the project. Who is to say what !votes might have been swayed had he been allowed to fully explain his reasoning? Also, in my case, you attempted to tell me I couldn't make further comment in the first area you collapsed inside a box. It was only when I objected that you removed the instruction not to edit it, albeit with (something of a snarky edit summary). All that said, it comes down to a question of the appearance of impropriety. I could look at your vote, look at your edits of others' comments, and perceive a conflict of interest, even a bias against strong arguments to keep. That doesn't mean the bias is there, but its appearance does call your actions into question. I'd like to discuss this further, but at my talk page. There's an improper deletion to be overturned here. :-) --SSBohio01:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hat and hab are just generic collapse box templates, I didn't write the 'Please do not edit this archive' to keep anyone from commenting. I posted my actions for review to AN/I and received only positive replies there and on the talk page from admins. Mr Coleman has since returned and posted again to AN/I, you may wish to review that post. If you wish to discuss it further, let me know, but I don't know that it is truly relevant at this point. Avruchtalk01:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My sole concern is the effect of the edits on the outcome of the AfD. Who's to say what offer of proof or logical argument would be persuasive. I commented on one !vote and the editor came back & struck through their contribution. Did my comment change their mind? Who knows? Could William P. Coleman's (IMO) cogent and persuasive arguments, if left in the AfD, have changed one mind? five? ten? Maybe not. But maybe it could, and 5 changes of heart could reverse the numbers. It's impossible to know how the well-intended action you took ended up changing the debate. --SSBohio02:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I would be more easy with this decision had she made a long closing rationale weighing up the pros and cons of the different arguments. Simply stating "delete" on this highly controversial AfD was a bad move. DEVS EX MACINApray02:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is true that no matter what she wrote it'd be criticized and make cannon fodder for the inevitable DRV. I don't know that this was the reason, but its what I thought when I saw it. Avruchtalk02:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hardly think that's acceptable, and I think posting a reason, whether it would be picked apart at DRV or not, is FAR better than simply stating "Delete", and then blanking a request for clarification. DEVS EX MACINApray02:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely not acceptable. Even if an admin doesn't want controversy, there's no reason to blatantly ignore the hard work editors put in on both sides of the debate. The closing admin, especially in such a controversial and heated AfD has the responsibility for providing the rationale behind the final decision. As for refusing to provide a reason after it's asked for, I don't even know what to call that. ~ Homologeo (talk) 08:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn deletion until the admin can bother to post an explanation. An AFD like this shouldn't just get a one-word-and-done close. What's worse, the admin blanked a request for explanation. Unacceptable behavior. --W.marsh02:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
DRV doesn't negate one's need to explain a confusing and controversial admin action. Discussion (whatever the venue) is only moot if someone has no good argument to make. --W.marsh02:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn deletion. Following the whole debate closely, I couldn't find one single good reason to delete, I couldn't find any that didn't reduce to some imaginary policy of WP:ITHINKIVEGOTTAPUKE. More than 30 votes for keep, along with sophisticated, sound reasoning behind them, is certainly no small support for Wikipedia standards, especially given the fact that these polls are least of all majority decisions where mere streamrolling with outright anti-intellectualism like we've seen here is clearly invalid. In further polls for delete/merge/redirect just days and weeks ago, the article had gathered enough support from 5 dozen people to be left alone, which makes the mere re-nomination within such a short timespan even more malicious and the rationale behind nomination even more invalid. We couldn't even find consensus over such a simple issue whether it's Adult-child sex or CSA that is a POV fork (and it's definitely not somebody's personal opinions that matter on building a consensus, so stating it again won't help anything), as even a POV fork in itself is clearly not a reason to delete as has been stated many of times in that poll, and we certainly found even less anything remotely resembling a consensus regarding deletion. Again, this is no majority vote, especially if any single person voting for delete, with all due respect, try to justify it by excuses indicating they have left their brain at the entrance because they couldn't say more than what ultimately reduced to "I hate it!" or brought evident lies and misinformation such as "only molesters would ever use such a name". Really, until this AfD was suddenly closed, I was convinced this would result in another decision of Keep because I didn't see one sound reason for deletion appearing in that poll. Again, polls are not about majorities but about consensus, and this poll certainly deserves an eternal place in the hall of fame of polls lacking anything like a clear consensus. And I agree, even if there would've been consensus for anything in this most recent poll (but there clearly wasn't), it still wouldn't deliver the closing admin of giving a proper rationale, especially when asked about it, and even forbidding to ask on a personal talkpage only confirms my notion this deletion wasn't made with due consideration and sound level-headedness. Most of all, it fundamentally violated the most simple policy of Wikipedia polls which is following consensus! The nominattion tiself was pathetic to begin with, and the way the poll developed as well as the final, entirely arbitrary decision to delete were most shameful. --TlatoSMD (talk)
Comment As a non-admin, I do not have access to the deleted article. There were concerns that the AFD nom had made subtle edits to the article in bad faith with the goal of undermining the quality and neutrality of the article prior to nomination. I can't and won't make that claim, but in light of your observations I would request a brief review of the edit history of the article to determine if there is any validity to the claim, if appropriate. Thank you. Pharmboy (talk) 03:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've reviewed the edit history to settle this question. User:SqueakBox on Jan. 17 made two edits redirecting the article to Child sexual abuse before nominating for deletion three and a half hours later. In the interim, the page switched back and forth between a disambiguation page and a page holding only a hidden (by HTML) notice to refer to the talk page discussion. Prior to these, his previous edits were on Jan. 15 and earlier. In other words, I don't see any evidence of SB (or any other user) making edits with the purpose of undermining the AfD discussion. Even were somebody to try such a thing, there were enough editors monitoring the article to make it an unlikely prospect. Tijuana Brass (talk) 03:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To clarify, SqueakBox's involvement with this article was far from being limited to just a move or re-direct. In fact, he has been the primary reason why for months we were unable to do anything with the article due to his constant edit warring that he was repeatedly warned for by admins (while none seemed to care about his constant flaming of other users with more reliable facts and sources than him). Even when admins started protecting the article and put up formal messages that any further editing would result in instant bans, he kept doing it without any admin stepping in before note was made on A/NI. When admins finally stepped in because of that note and restored the protected version, he and Jack edit-warred with that very admin so yet another admin had to be called in and two admins warned Squeak, Jack, and Pol personally. Now that they saw they couldn't just go on edit warring, the result was that they dragged the article into yet another poll to delete/merge/redirect after 15-20 of these polls had already resulted in keep while showing very similar patterns of keep and delete votes as this most recent one. --TlatoSMD (talk) 03:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment SqueakBox's actions cannot be consideredin a vacuum. There has been a cadre of like-minded editors (not a cabal or conspiracy, but people who think alike) who have edited to remove references, move pages against consensus, delete & redirct against consensus, and, in myriad other ways. --SSBohio04:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion do we really want this overturned so we can engage in endless more controversy, and esp given that the decision was entirely non-controversial given the vote spread. To bring this up again is clear disruption. Thanks, SqueakBox03:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to you, the creator of the article was a "pro-pedophile activist." Now you accuse Pharmboy, who so far as I can tell is an experienced editor in good standing, of "clear disruption." SqueakBox, how can I put this? I applaud your tireless and heroic efforts to fight off those menacing throngs of mustachioed pederasts that surely must scuttle about the dark corners of Wikipedia at unseemly hours, casting their nauseating brand of POV-pushing perversion across our beloved encyclopedia. Really, I do. If there were a creep-buster barnstar, I'm sure you would be the recipient of, like, four of them. May I politely suggest, however, that you not assume the the worst of your nice and helpful colleagues just because they disagree with your editorial preferences?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I haven't accused Pharmboy of anything, please do not do so in my name. I think there are opeople in this debate whoa re disruptive but have never put or thought of pharmboy as one of them. Thanks, SqueakBox03:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"to bring this up again is clear disruption." Who brought it up again, if not the person who requested the DRV? If that's not what you meant (though it's clearly what you said), perhaps you should consider rewording or striking your comment. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 04:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as no consensus I don't think there was anything resembling consensus, nor did I see a strong argument on NPOV. I don't believe anyone in the AfD cited any passage that was a problem from a POV viewpoint. I will admit I only scanned the article, but it seemed well written, well sourced, and generally quite acceptable. If the closer felt that NPOV was lacking, he/she should have probably mentioned that (and cited something). One thing that does bother me is that I was pointed to this deletion review on my talk page. I'm not at all happy with how this AfD/closing/review has occurred to date (on either side). Hobit (talk) 03:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I repeat, a.) the article on canvassing states it's only canvassing if it bothers formerly uninvolved editors and that's why I think this move only indicates how much some people are afraid of a few involved people throwing in their informed opinions, and b.) I regard this as another one of SqueakBox's moves requiring admin intervention against him. --TlatoSMD (talk) 03:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So admin intervention is to be flamed and edit-warred for months when it's directed against you, but wholly endorsed when serving your cause? --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:06, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop, both of you. This deletion review will not become the flame war that the AfD was. If you can't comment directly on the deletion review (according to the policies at WP:DRV), don't add anything else here. Tijuana Brass (talk) 04:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
comment Thanks for checking the history. While I never have and never will edit the article (or seen it before I stumbled into the AFD), I am concerned that much of the rationale in this review appears to be based on people's opinion of the article, rather than of the process. A 3rd AFD of sorts. I am hoping these are discounted, as the primary reason for coming to Review was to address the policy process, not this article in particular. Pharmboy (talk) 14:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Avruch, is it generally considered acceptable to revert edits on a user talk page for canvasing? I've never seen it happen before, but I really don't know policy there. Hobit (talk) 04:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Funny that you mention it, according to the link you provide pretty much every single edit and post made by the people trying to remove the article resembles what's described there under The Criticism Gambit, and the same obviously applies for the most of the article Child Sexual Abuse. --TlatoSMD (talk) 14:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Yes, this certainly was not delete poll no. 2, in fact it was about no. FIFTEEN counting all formal polls that where made on the talkpage. The admin deleting the article deleted those polls as well. --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:12, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe Nakon was saying that DRV is not another AFD, the close is reviewed to see if it is in line with policy but the issues of AFD are not to be hashed out again. Also when deleting an article the talk page is deleted with it (a talk page without an article can be speedied per CSD G8) so these discussions were not deleted with the intent of hiding the consensus but simply deleting the talk page per their close of the AFD. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I didn't mean to imply the closing admin did it on purpose, I only tried to explain why I can't give evidence by linking to all former polls. --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn - My personal opinion is that the article should have been deleted, but we're here to determine the consenus of the debate and I'm very sorry, but this should have had a closing rationale, and when requested to add one, an edit summary of "Fnord" from the closing admins talk page whilst removing it is quite frankly unacceptable. All in all, there is no way we can determine whether or not consensus was correctly applied in such a hot debate, involving many users, without knowing the thought process that went on. Ryan Postlethwaite04:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
After reading the closing admins rationale, I'm far from convinced. If there's POV editing here, then cut it out, don't delete the article. I'm very disapointed to IAR used here because the admin feels it would be back up at AfD in 6 months - this really is not a reason for deletion and gives no determination as to the consensus of the debate. Ryan Postlethwaite04:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse Deletion after reviewing the whole discussion I feel that this was a valid close, and while more reasoning would have been nice, it is not necessary for the close to be valid. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is true that no reasoning was provided, and I would have liked to have read the logic behind this close, but reasoning is not a requirement for closing an AFD, even one as heated as this, and I look foreword to seeing Keilana's explanation for this during this DRV. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To clarify, Fat Man, when you say "more reasoning than nothing at all" do you mean a rationale by the closing admin, or do you mean everybody who voted for "delete"? --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment could someone please cite something (other than that title) that was cited as NPOV in the AfD? It's darn long, but I'm not seeing anything. If there really was nothing, I don't understand how all the NPOV arguments stood at closing. Hobit (talk) 04:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. May I boldly remind everybody that this is not a majority vote either where everybody can get away with their personal, unverified convictions in case this policy applies here just as well as in any other poll (which I assert the closing admin has chosen to ignore), so I can request the correspondent information box may be placed at the top? I think the closing admin's refusal for any rationals or explanations on her talkpage, even deleting any such requests on her talkpage with a call of "FNORD!" only highlights how little reason was possibly used. --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn -- I never once thought this would close as a consensus to delete. The arguments among !voters were mainly about the content, not the existence of the article. The delete votes mainly cited that the article was a POV fork. If you look at WP:AFD, it singles out POV as not a very strong reason for deletion. These deletes were especially weak because many were an unexplained reference to POVFORK without citing anything in the article to back up that contention. The endorse votes above largely cite the popular disgust (squick factor) over their view of this subject. Since it's impossible to tell why the deleting editor made the call to delete, there's nothing concrete to discuss. Anyone who disagrees is at a disadvantage over having this deletion unexplained such that they have nothing to consider or raise objections to. The deleting editor, according to comments above, hasn't responded to calls for explanation. This kind of unsupported action should be swiftly reversed, as should any action where the admin refuses to explain him/herself. --SSBohio04:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn - There clearly should have been a rationale posted. There is no evidence that the sides were weighed according to their argumentation. Looking it over, this seems to be more a case of no consensus defaulting to keep rather than delete. --Veritas (talk) 05:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn - I was tempted to say delete because most of the information can be found in, or be merged with, a number of other articles on Wikipedia including Pederasty, North American Man/Boy Love Association, etc. but the way the AfD was closed - not really being a consensus and no explanation by the admin - stinks and this should be a wake-up call to editors and admins to be a little more thorough. As was stated above, WP:AFD singles out POV as not a very strong reason for deletion. So POV arguments are moot. - ✰ALLSTAR✰echo06:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Just to remind people, the way the article looked liked was least of all due to the people intending to keep it. What you saw was the result of constant hostile edit warring for months, even against a number of admins, to remove it one way or another. None of the people edit warring was blocked or banned for it even though admins placed official warnings stating such, while people simply critizizing this behavior civilly on the talkpage were threatened, intimidated, flamed, and insulted there and on their own userpages. Obviously there was very little the opponents of the article could do other than using scare tactics and steamrolling. --TlatoSMD (talk) 07:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OVERTURN as NO CONSENSUS. This article will never have true consensus. Every other policy and guideline, though, is clearly met. Every policy argument can only have a single, common final outcome, and that is To Keep. VigilancePrime (talk) 07:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC) (originally: 06:50, 23 January 2008)[reply]
*More detailed explanation for above comment by VigilancePrime moved here.
Comment. So what? There was never any clear demonstration for either article being a POV fork, at least none people could find any consensus on. --TlatoSMD (talk) 07:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What about the even more fundamental burden of proof on those voting to delete? I saw that going largely ignored, dealt with by supplying patent misinformation, or by appealing to largely irrelevant and entirely unreliable popularity. --TlatoSMD (talk) 07:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment.WP:WEIGHT allows you to appeal to popularity when it comes to points of view and the amount of detail the article gives to minority views. It is entirely a popularity issue, and quite frankly this view is ultra-unpopular. If you question the reliablity of that point, hundreds of thousands of courts in America alone will demonstrate it for you. --Nealparr(talk to me)08:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'd also like to reference the draft that many supporters pointed to in order to highlight what the article could achieve if the editing process only wouldn't be constantly disrupted and bludgeoned by people trying to remove a lot of references and well-sourced academic, scientific statements from authoritative sources at all costs. --TlatoSMD (talk) 07:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The draft clearly inflates the point of view that it may not be abuse, which is an ultra-minority view (yes, I read all of it). The draft is not compatible with the "Weight" clause of WP:NPOV which says "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views". At most, the information contained in the draft should be a tiny blip in some other article, and I'd possibly even argue against that, but 47KB is ridiculous. --Nealparr(talk to me)07:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Remember that was only a draft where the more unpopular opinion was edited in first and that's still largely lacking the popular one, and I personally assure you that article would never get my approval without it. And again, any potential POV issues of an official article are at best a very weak reason to delete. As for alleged "undue" issues, Homologeo pointed to the fact that Holocaust denial isn't exactly smaller than Criticism of Holocaust denial. Due to the un-scientific unreliability and thus largely irrelevance of the inherently ethnocentric and irrational popular opinion on ACS we pounded upon on and on and on on the talkpage and in the AfD, there's also very good reason to keep said anti-intellectual opinion at a minimum even if such a POV is uttered by people holding whatever fancy degree. Lastly, because of all the aforementioned, WP:THISNUMBERISHUGE applies where it reads that a huge number of followers alone is least of all any compelling reason to make it relevant. Still, even though so many people tried to appeal to popularity, nobody came up with even just a hundreth(!) of as many reliable scientific sources for the popular opinion as for the unpopular one. Remember that Wikipedia is not about "The Truth(tm)", it's about verifiability, and anybody trying to verify the popular opinion here on Wikipedia WHATSOEVER did a very, very bad job at it. --TlatoSMD (talk) 08:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. You pointed to the draft as an example of "what [it] could be achieve". If that's what it could achieve, I echo the editors above in saying salt it. --Nealparr(talk to me)08:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It may be ultra-minority in some Western media outlets, but it is the mainstream scientific and academic view on the subject. The reason why the extremely "dedicated" editors that have been intent on achieving balance, as you call it, have been deleting scholarly references instead of adding them, and ultimately resort to AfD, is that scholars supporting their personal vision of mainstream POV are actually few and far between. Bikasuishin (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Whatever the academic or scientific point of view, it is overshadowed by the greater legal view, which is that ACS is abuse. There are by far more people working in court systems than academic areas, so if this is a scholarly point of view, it's still a POV fork subject to weight. NPOV talks directly about the popularity of views and an appeal to science on this issue is an appeal to a comparatively small point of view. --Nealparr(talk to me)08:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. And whatever the current merely legal construct, and in spite of the fact the behavior has been persecuted in the West for several millennia, most people in recorded history didn't buy into the narrow pre-conceptions of our time and called it "child sexual abuse". Are you trying to make an ethnocentric, uncritically positivist social-Darwinistic argument that our culture would currently be the apogee of humanity and sound common sense? --TlatoSMD (talk) 08:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Apparently so, because you're advertizing to pin a mere chronocentric legal label at what's a paramount issue spanning all of history, all human cultures, and most higher vetrebrate species. --TlatoSMD (talk) 08:56, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm only saying that reliable, respectable science obviously finds it pretty much everywhere, least of all only there where our culture has very, very recently invented a new name for what it's been hating and fearing due to irrational cultural issues for a very long time. We've been over and over those inciting and confounding cultural issues on the talkpage and the AfD. --TlatoSMD (talk) 09:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. My vote was that there was no clear demonstration that this is not a POV fork, and there isn't. Why, for example, if there are respectable science conversations on the topic, does it not just mention that briefly at Child sexual abuse and call it a day? Why does it need a 47KB fork off covering a minority opinion going into excessive detail? Ultimately the scientific view is that human beings have a biological urge to screw anything at all, and lacking something in their environment to screw, engage in masturbation. That view, minor by comparison to the legal view, does not need it's own article, and if so, is already covered by sexual reproduction which clearly covers biological urges. No good argument has been given that justifies a separate article to inflate the view that ACS is either historically important, scientifically important, or anything else with great weight. What has been demonstrated is the POV fork has a tendency to try and legitimate an illegal act by excessively saying "science says it's only natural". That's a minor, irrelevant by legal comparison, point of view. And there's been nothing said here that justifies a POV fork off covering that minority view in either great or little detail. The little detail it deserves can be covered in other articles just fine. --Nealparr(talk to me)09:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To both Nealparr and TlatoSMD, I don't think this review should really be about the reasons for either Keep or Delete, because all that has now been discussed more than thoroughly at the AfD. At least for now, I would recommend that we stick to evaluating the legitimacy of the AfD closing decision. Once that's sorted out, if need be, we can have another go at the arguments presented by both sides of the debate. ~ Homologeo (talk) 09:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's alright. I've said all I want to say. The argument was that "POV fork" did not gain consensus, and is not a legitimate reason to close the AfD or delete the article. All of the above is pertaining to that. The result was a clear POV fork and POV forks to inflate a topic are covered by the WP:DEL#REASON"Subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline" passage. As a standalone article it's not notable in relation to other, more notable articles and the relevant notability guideline at play here is WP:WEIGHT, which is actually a "non-negotiable" policy rather than a guideline. --Nealparr(talk to me)09:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. Deletion seems a valid outcome to this discussion. Although opinions were split on a numerical bias, no satisfactory answer seems to have been forthcoming in reply to some of the issues raised by deleters. That said, the closing admin's reasoning would make this easier to assess - I would encourage Keilana to provide clear rationales for her decisions - especially where the result may comes as a surprise to particiants. If an admin doesn't feel able to provide such reasons, they shouldn't close AfDs that need one. WjBscribe08:21, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion Valid outcome as the article was clearly a POV fork and much of the debate did not adress the core issue so the no consensus claim is invalid. Whack the closer with a trout for not providing a rationale after such a heated and long AfD. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand how to address an issue of NPOV fork when no one specified any detailed reason for making a NPOV claim in the AfD other than citing the title. Hobit (talk) 13:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You do so by deleting the fork so that each view must be presented in the same article. Only that way can we maintain NPOV because that way we aren't representing any of the conflicting views out of context. I don't see how the keep side managed to refute this or prove that NPOV of each individual article (which is the requirement and the reason we have WP:POVFORK) would be maintained by keeping this. EconomicsGuy (talk) 15:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, let me try again. I don't see any arguments about what makes this a POV fork in the AfD. Just people saying POV fork with no comment about what about it makes it one. It's like saying "not notable" but not explaining why. Such comments should, per AfD guidelines, be ignored. Hobit (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn Clear lack of consensus. The arguments for deletion were in my opinion saying delete rather than edit when one has major POV problems, which is not policy. DGG (talk) 08:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's a point where one has such serious POV problems one might as well delete an article and start again. I at least wouldn't have any objection if a more NPOV new article were made (possibly using some sections from this one). JoshuaZ (talk) 04:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn as No Consensus - It's clear there was no consensus to delete this article. At best, it was a split vote. Even if there were technically more Delete votes - most of them didn't provide any solid reasoning; they consisted of just one phrase or sentence, if that. Even when there was that one phrase or sentence, it was usually a verbatim copy of what someone else had said. Considering that the AfD explicitly said that this was a page for discussing reasons for the validity of having this article on Wikipedia, and not just a poll of Keep vs Delete, then votes without sufficient or original reasoning provided should not be viewed as granting majority to any one side. Finally, the closing admin didn't even provide a reason for the final decision, and there was no summary given to why the article should be deleted. In a case such as this, where there's was a great deal of heated debate from both sides, and where there was clearly no consensus, the closing admin is obligated to explain why a certain decision was made regarding the AfD. Besides, this decision was definitely not one representative of either the article's legitimacy or the discussions within its AfD. ~ Homologeo (talk) 08:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn per TlatoSMD. There has been one single argument for deletion that was single-mindedly repeated (POV fork) in spite of having been articulately debunked by considerate editors almost as soon as the AfD started. Where's consensus? Bikasuishin (talk) 08:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Few edits indeed, but the first of them was about 10 months ago; I know one shouldn't take offense at such "informational remarks", but if you have any specific concern about my identity, please bring them to my Talk page, thanks. Bikasuishin (talk) 14:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. We should seek broader commentary. Deleting a POV fork (denied by its maintainers) was quite legitimate, although the article's maintainers deny it was a fork. Cool HandLuke08:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn due to clear lack of consensus for deletion. If even the closing admin fails to provide a clear rationale behind her decision when specifically asked, then the closure fails completely. - PeaceNT (talk) 09:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Having read the newly-added closing rationale, I maintain my overturn nonetheless. IAR is by no means a justified reason to go against the community's view, or to claim that consensus exists when in fact it doesn't. Suspecting that the article will be sent to AfD in 6 months is a lack of assumption of good faith of other editors. That the subject is controversial is not grounds for deletion; controversial topics are still legitimate. Though I agree that "Wikipedia articles are not the place to express your views of what is right and wrong.", I must say this is rather irrelevant, as views mentioned in the article are sourced from outside references, not from the editors of the articles. Undue weight issues, if found, can be fixed by means other than deletion. Unimpressive closing rationale. - PeaceNT (talk) 07:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. The article is one of a handful that is frequented by a small group of editors with very polarized opinions; I don't think deletion would really solve anything unless we are to delete anything loosely related to pedophilia from the 'pedia. I really don't see anything inherently POV-pushy about the article -- the title doesn't presume a mainstream POV judgment, nor does it presume any non-mainstream judgment. The language of "adult-child sex" is neutral, not centrist. In any case, lack of consensus rings clear. — xDanielxT/C\R10:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. I read through the whole thing yesterday with closing it in mind and I reached the same conclusion. NPOV is non-negotiable so an article which is irremediably at odds with NPOV must be deleted. We just don't do right to replys and sympathetic point of view. Angus McLellan(Talk)12:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. Some have argued that this should be endorsed on points of policy, despite the obvious lack of consensus. However, if all that is left is an article called Child Sexual Abuse, we are neglecting the history and nonmedical, crosscultural significance of Adult Child sex, a significance that dwarves its current western conception as CSA. This is not an issue of POV, or the accounts of ACS going against what we think they should be. It is an issue of due weight. No, Gwen! (talk) 12:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletionOverturn Yes, I know I originally said in the AfD to keep the article, with my reasoning being it was well sourced, and written from a NPOV. However, at this point I am not sure if the article is truly NPOV for one, and two, each of the sections referred to an article existing article on Wikipedia. It's a highly controversial, perhaps maybe the most controversial article here, and the debate will inflame both sides, for and against. I'm stating at this point to leave the article deleted, however I do wish the admin would have made a comment as to why they felt the consensus was for deletion. To add to this, after reading the closing admin's reasons for deleting the article, I'm not convinced the article should have been removed. The fact the admin stated that there would be drama over this and basically used that as a deletion reason tells me this was deleted incorrectly. Wildthing61476 (talk) 04:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn; unpleasantness or controversy are not deletion rationales. But, above all, the AfD displayed how controversial the article is— and never approached anything resembling consensus. Regardless of anyone's feelings on the topic, the default is to keep. — Coren(talk)14:08, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn; it's unacceptable to delete an article after an AfD like this without explanation; there was no clear consensus, and the closer's justification (that is "") doesn't provide a reason to delete.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn There was a pretty even split of opinion with both sides offering well reasoned arguments. Should definitely be "no consensus". --Tango (talk) 14:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. We have no way to know what the closing admin's thought process was (which sucks). However, it's as likely as not that it was under IAR for the good of the encyclopedia. If that's true, it should stay deleted. Herostratus (talk) 15:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IAR does not override established consensus (or lack thereof). Had the article been speedied despite there not being a valid CSD for it, that could be argued as IAR, but after a lengthy discussion with the community, the community's views should be carried out (legal issues notwithstanding). You should never do something knowing it doesn't have consensus, IAR is for when you can't prove there's consensus but as pretty sure the community would agree with you given the chance. --Tango (talk) 15:46, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong endorse. Basically, the delete !voters feel this is a POV fork. The keep !voters feel that the title "Adult-child sex" is more appropriate than "Child sexual abuse", and that any POV problems can be fixed. But that's against policy: we delete POV forks because contrasting points of view must be forced to be presented together, and only having one article can force that to happen. Child sexual abuse can be moved if need be, if consensus supports that. It can be improved to include better coverage of the concept historically. However, while both exist, no progress can be made. Mangojuicetalk15:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment That is exactly what was happening in the AFD, those who wanted to keep saw it as a seperate issue (thus the rationale for a seperate article looking at history, etc), whereas the delete !voters saw them as the same. The viewpoint that they were seperate subjects was largely ignored for unknown reasons. But that shouldn't matter, as the purpose of the review should be to figure out if the process itself was handled properly and according to policy. IE: was there a genuine concensus to delete? Pharmboy (talk) 15:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My point is, the keep arguments do not counter the delete arguments. Therefore, even though the count was roughly split there is good reason to delete. Furthermore, the count significantly favors deletion anyway. Mangojuicetalk15:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment.Mango, again, no majority vote, so not good reason to delete at all. As even several admins here have said already, "POV issues" or "POV fork issues" are no good reason to delete either even if they were true, which we couldn't find any remote consensus on. Pharmboy, close, but not quite. I think the most-accurate analogy of our rationale about any POV forks was by calling CSA a tiny, narrow US state made out of very, very recent legal and a bit older irrational, ethnocentric cultural issues and ACS a large continent made out of all human cultures and nurture at all times, human nature, and the nature of most higher vertebrates which that one tiny CSA state is a part of, no matter how royal and supreme this tiny state feels now that it's recently been made capitol state. --TlatoSMD (talk) 15:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You know, I'm kind of sick of people trashing vote counts. It's not a vote because reasoning counts, but reasoning weighs even further towards deletion. The community spoke, and 4:3 wants it deleted. I would probably not call that a consensus with 7 comments, but with 70, it's as good as we can expect. "No consensus" is a terrible state for things to be in. As for POV fork being not a reason to delete, you are simply wrong: see WP:CFORK. NPOV issues alone are not normally a reason to delete, except where the situation seems unsalvageable, as at least some people have argued here. Mangojuicetalk16:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
4:3 is not consensus. Consensus is broad agreement, and 4:3 even with 7 million votes means that there is broad disagreement, that there is in fact no consensus.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Broad agreement" will never be had on some issues, so that shouldn't be our standard. We should be looking for a clear majority, but we should understand that sampling is random when only a few are chosen. That's why 4-3 is not clear, but 40-30 is. In any case, we should not desire to go to a state of indecision where the article's fate is decided by default, unless we have to. Mangojuicetalk17:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Broad agreement" will never be had on some issues, but I don't see what that shouldn't be our standard to take some actions. It's not a state of indecision to say that an article shouldn't be deleted without broad agreement that it should be deleted; it's avoiding taking a drastic step without agreement that the step should be taken.--Prosfilaes (talk) 17:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn until there's a rationale. Conterversal AFDs should always have a good rationale to it's close. If a rationale is provided, I may change my opinion, depends how strong it is. Secretaccount15:24, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI: The AfD closed with 39 deletes and 28 keeps. Minus the clear SPAs, that is a 60.9% outcome in favor of deleting. (39 vs 25). Just in case anyone was curious or didn't want to try to count through the other discussion. Avruchtalk15:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI: This DRV is at 20/19 in favor of endorsing. Four overturns are based on the lack of a closing rationale, and two are from SPAs. I'm not advocating discounting these opinions necessarily, but without them it is 20/13 (60.6%) to endorse. And before anyone points it out, yes I'm aware it isn't a vote - just providing the statistics for anyone intereste (as I am). Avruchtalk15:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To Avruch: I appreciate your effort in summing up the votes of the AfD but in my opinion I don't think many of the delete votes should be counted because they didn't provide valid arguments to back them up (See: WP:JUSTAVOTE, WP:PERNOMINATOR & WP:JUSTAPOLICY) as you said they did below. Here are some examples:
Delete per above. POV fork. Resolute 14:06, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete Obviously a POV fork. Wikipedia already has an article on Pedophilia --RucasHost (talk) 04:48, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete POV fork. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete all POV forks. Neıl ☎ 10:46, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete POV fork of the obvious kind. EconomicsGuy (talk) 08:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete as POV fork per above. Eusebeus (talk) 15:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Delete per krimpet -- Ļıßζېấשּׂ~ۘ Ώƒ ﻚĢęخ (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Also I'd like to know which 3 people who voted for keep you are accusing of being SPA's and what proof you have if any, thanks. Ospinad (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The argument describing the article as a POV fork was established early on, and relates to a clear set of circumstances described in WP:NPOV here, which is a core Wikimedia Foundation policy. There is no reason for people to endlessly repeat the same explanations - they noted they agreed with the description, nice and simple. There were some keep rationales that weren't explicit either, I'll point out. As far as SPAs, two are identified on this page elsewhere. The third I excluded was an IP. I haven't looked and am not familiar with your WP links above, but I'm guessing offhand they aren't core policies or policies at all. Avruchtalk22:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but it's not clear to whom you are referring to as SPAs. Could you possibly identify these users? If they are indeed SPAs, then administrative action should likely be taken. ~ Homologeo (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So-called "identified SPA" here. I did skim through the AfD before it was closed, but didn't comment, and much less !vote, as I saw little to add to the very thoughful comments of such editors as TlatoSMD, Homologeo and Strichmann. They went through great length to patiently explain why the nominator's argument was in error, and provided ample references to justify this. Being a newcomer of sorts, it hadn't occurred to me that such eloquent reasoning could be deemed of less weight than a horde of WP:PERNOM delete partisans, some of whom didn't give much semblance of having read the discussion. I thought the banner proclaiming "this is not a majority vote" in bold letters at the top was policy. Perhaps I was wrong? Bikasuishin (talk) 23:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The policy is WP:CONSENSUS and the determination of whether or not consensus exists is the role of administrators and bureaucrats, even while reviewing past actions of administrators and bureaucrats. In any case, the percentages are for informational purposes only and whether or not one or two additional votes are included on either side doesn't materially either the percentages or the outcome - of either this discussion or the previous. Avruchtalk00:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Granting that some individuals did attempt to justify the SPA allegation, there was no solid argument presented against the reasons provided for why the topic of "Adult-child sex" is different from both "Pedophilia" and "Child sexual abuse." ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- Avruch, you state above that the argument describing the article as a POV fork was established early on. I looked at the AfD & here's what I found:
The first !vote to delete on the basis of the article being a POV fork was this one made by Merkinsmum. It says nothing about what in the article is POV or how the article is a POV fork of any other article. Instead, it tars anyone who uses the term adult-child sex as a pedophile. In this !vote, we can forget about establishing POV; The commenter didn't even avoid [[WP:NPA|].
Next, there's this !vote [1] from Rray, who calls the article a content fork, but not a POV fork.
Third, this one by krimpet demands we nuke with extreme prejudice this nonsensical POV fork. Again, no reason for the article's being a POV fork is given. Further, an article can't both be nonsensical and POV, and nothing we do on this project should be done with extreme prejudice.
Since krimpet's was the first one referenced by another delete vote (per krimpet), I'll stop with three. No assertion of what is POV about the article was made. Where is the establishment of the POV fork argument to which you allude, Avruch? From what I see, the claim of POV fork was bandied about quite liberally without ever laying out in concrete terms what the problems were with the article. An unsupported cite to policy provides nothing to discuss and nothing to refute. It is, perhaps, the weakest argument to make. --SSBohio02:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think content fork and POV fork are synonymous in this case. I believe they are both mentioned in the same section of the NPOV policy page. Even had Rray not made his statement to establish a basis (if less comprehensively argued) for the POV fork !vote, it was debated more comprehensively in the first AfD. Avruchtalk02:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- Avruch, you raised a couple of interesting points:
You (IMO correctly) point out that the first AfD had a more comprehensive debate about POV than this one. Even with the better rationale, the first AfD closed a keep. Logically, then, if this AfD's arguments are the lesser of the two, shouldn't this have closed the same way?
Even equating a content fork with a POV fork (which the page you reference doesn't do), there still was no argument I could find that made the case for this article being POV. If you could specifically answer my question above (Where is the establishment of the POV fork argument to which you allude), that would go a long way to improve my understanding.
Without anyone's making a specific, factual assertion of POV, a vote to "deletePOVFORK" should have no more weight in an AfD than a vote of "keep - not a POVFORK." An argument to keep or delete needs to advance some logical, rational basis; if that's a policy basis, then naming the policy alone is a weak statement of opinion rather than a cogent argument to keep or delete. --SSBohio23:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- Jack, what I said was that the claim of POV fork was bandied about quite liberally without ever laying out in concrete terms what the problems were with the article. That includes the nomination to delete the article. Saying it's POV without factual basis makes as much sense as saying it's NPOV without factual basis. No one I've found, the nominator included, ever made an argument why the article was POV, only an empty assertion of opinion. Even after asking here, there was no pointer to the rationale for declaring POV fork in your response. Where is the factual basis? How can a delete argument be credenced if it contains no facts and no argument? --SSBohio23:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And how was anyone to argue here against (or for for that matter) allegations that it was a "POV fork" if no well spelled-out arguments were made. Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. When the votes are split, some rationale must be presented as to why the choise was made to delete, instead of defaulting per no consensus(which I don't believe there was). There has been argued that the keep votes didn't adress the issues raised (pov fork), but I do believe there has been a lot of arguments back and forth over weather it is a pov fork. I really can't see any consensus in the AfD. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Final Comment - What I am seeing is similar to the AFD itself, a plurality (but not a majority) wanting the article to be deleted with both sides presenting valid arguments. I guess the question is: When there is no clear concensus but a plurality want to delete, do we default to keep an article, or do we delete it? Does 55-60% = Consensus? Are we kidding ourselves when we say "it isn't a vote" or when we say we can seperate our personal feelings about the subject matter of the article and look at the bigger issues objectively? Pharmboy (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I would say this is a point where percentages clearly fail us. The closing admin decided (I assume) that while the consensus wasn't clear in numerical terms, the weight of the delete arguments balanced the scale in favor of deletion arguments. In this case, its roughly the same numerical split - but the threshold here is again consensus, i.e. now that it has been deleted there must be a consensus to undelete. Supposing a separate admin will weigh this discussion it is entirely possible that this admin will find that no consensus to overturn exists. Numerically contradictory decisions, and yet entirely plausible given that objective criteria don't apply in judging these discussions. Avruchtalk20:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion I didn't participate in the AfD, but after having a good look through it I can't really fault the Delete close. Other than the lack of a closing rationale, which really should have been provided, it seems a reasonable interpretation of consensus. RMHED (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn the deletion. For the very same reasons that I argued in Afd, and neatly summed up by User:Homologeo. To admit that a subject is relevant and goes beyond an ethnocentric (even if morally superior) model, is not to endorse it. GrooV (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Therefore, my opinion is that we should revert this deletion on policy grounds. The lack of consensus or justification by the closing admin is also very problematic. I doubt that the admin could have got away with that, had so many admins not opined to delete. GrooV (talk) 23:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
endorse deletion for all the reasons I said in the AfD and because nothing was wrong with the deletion by the admin. And strange that tlato thingy has 'made sure some people were informed' of this DRV, and not others.Merkinsmum22:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- I agree with you about the uneven DRV notices. It's canvassing to only notify some & not others. As far as your deletion rationale is concerned, the rationale I recall was your statement that only paedos use this term. I use this term, and I oppose pedophilia. What was it about the article that you saw as POV? --SSBohio00:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn until closing administrator can produce a statement explaining the closing rationale. This is the kind of AFd whose inevitable delrev can be smelled from a mile away even before closing it. Only an administrator who has the fortitude to standup to the delrev and associated talk page discussion ought to take on such a closing. No matter how it was closed, we would probably be right here discussing it, as long as the closing did not elucidate a good rationale, and might be anyway. JERRYtalkcontribs22:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. I the title isn't a POV fork, despite many repititions, and the content need not be. To quote at length from WP:NPOV -
"You won't even need to say he was evil. That is why the article on Hitler does not start with "Hitler was a bad man"—we don't need to, his deeds convict him a thousand times over. We just list the facts of the Holocaust dispassionately, and the voices of the dead cry out afresh in a way that makes name-calling both pointless and unnecessary. Please do the same: list Saddam's crimes, and cite your sources."
Endorse deletion I voted keep originally, but I felt that the overall vibe was consensus to delete, even if it was not my personal opinion. нмŵוτнτ01:03, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn deletion. It was harmful and unjustified by the consent of involved editors and any policy that I have looked over. I think that this was caused by the tabu of the subject, not any argument that the article is historically biased or not founded on good, subject specific centre ground (as is CSA, I gather). I see no justification of the idea that this is a pov fork, just nodding heads, unfortunately.. and they ignore the bad process of this deletion. This is a silly delete. People do not want to hear things that they would rather not know happened. It has always troubled me greatly that some people think some things are just not up for discussion. And now they do it to an encyclopedia, our greatest source of knowledge.
endorse deletion While it would have been nice for the closing admin to give an explanation of the decision, I don't see that as completely necessary in this case. The argument that it was POV fork was not well-rebutted in the AfD nor has it been well-rebutted here. JoshuaZ (talk) 02:56, 24 January 2008 (UTC) Still endorsing but with a large caveat now that the closing admin has explained the reasoning on the talk page. The first two arguments are very good and are enough to win me over. The third is not; we should not delete content simply because of drama associated with it. The final goal is always to build an encyclopedia. If we allow deletion based on drama we will eventually have no content on uncontroversial subjects. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC) Switching to abstaining. Need to think about this more. JoshuaZ (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing I would recommend is for you to reread the discussions at the AfD, for ample reasoning was provided for why this is not a POV fork. In fact, several major points of the rebuttals to the POV fork assertion went unchallenged till the end. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I read those arguments; they were less than convincing. Indeed, Mango summarized it pretty well in his response to you there. I think that an article on this topic might be possible but this is far from it. Now, if you want to put this in userspace and try to make a better article on the topic that doesn't have massive Undue Weight issues we might consider it. (FWIW, this article is closer to my personal POV on this issue than an NPOV article would be ; I know for a fact that my POV is very much a minority). JoshuaZ (talk) 04:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
60% delete votes is an even worse reason for deletion than to avoid drama. The face that the article was a POV-fork is still a reason for deletion though.Taemyr (talk) 09:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. So finally we see any statement by the closing admin. I find none of them convincing, in fact not even justifiable. 1.) tries to justify it by numbers, as a majority vote when the closing was 50-60 percent, and most of the delete votes were per-above partisans. I've responded to her concern of SPAs regarding my own person on my talkpage. 2.) repeats the utterly disputed argument of a "POV fork" which clearly the deletion policy states that such is a very weak argument for deletion even if it would be true, and a number of admins here have disputed the validity of this as a reason for delete as well as the assertion that the article itself was any POV fork or written in a POV style at all. The general Wikipedia consensus to deal with POV issues is to correct as has been pointed out by a large number of people here, not to delete. 3.) is a mere appeal to WP:IDONTLIKEIT which is clearly stated by policy as invalid. Karla above has addressed this issue by calling it censorship, and as many people have said, the article was dedicated to and at one time or another had a wealth of material that couldn't fit into any other article. The way I see it, closing admin's last sentence from her rationalization even endorses the article as it was or at the very least what it could have been without constant bludgeoning of process, if she'd take it seriously. --TlatoSMD (talk) 06:37, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
EDIT: I'd also like to note that the closing admin thanked on her talkpage User: MBisanz for providing her with a rationale after she'd made the closure and had deleted the article. Both posts are among those she blanked from her talkpage regarding her closure of this AfD. --TlatoSMD (talk) 09:08, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Did I do something improper, if so I'm sorry, I was just trying to quickly answer the new user's request with the standard reasons of how AfD decisions are made. DRV closer, feel free to ignore my opinion above if I'm now a COI'd user in this matter. MBisanztalk09:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think (not to put words in Tlato's mouth) that since the sequence of events suggests that the deleting admin came up with a rationale after the fact, that the close as delete was made without a rationale, and, implicitly, without careful consideration. Looking at the rationale, I have faith in the closer's action, but I think it was flawed, based on giving undue weight to a wealth of cookie cutter delete votes, and on not having a stated rationale at the time of deletion. It beggars belief that the closer didn't think the close would be controversial, given the circumstances. --SSBohio00:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Yes, SSB is right, as I've written on the talkpage here my concerns relate to potential lack of careful consideration by closing admin. --TlatoSMD (talk) 04:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a valid arguement: overturn per no consensus, and look it up on Google Scholar, you'd be surprised. This is a neutral scientific term, there's no reason why we shouldn't have an article with this name. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 07:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. A "POV fork" where you could seamlessly incorporate the article CSA (wouldn't it be for overall length), eh? The deleted article doesn't need to look a way those endorsing delete obviously imagine it like. --TlatoSMD (talk) 11:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strong overturn, no consensus for deletion. Arguments for keeping were more substantial, and arguments for deletion were mostly stupid one-liners. Horrible, and possibly very biased, closure. Grue 13:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn, first, closing as "delete" was a big mistake, since there was apparently no consensus for deletion. Second, closure of such controversial case without presenting any rationales demonstrates the irresponsibility from the closing admin. Third, the tardiness in providing the rationales shows an incapacity in defending actions. And last, after reading her late responses on the talk page, I am more convinced that her understanding of deletion criteria seems quite exiguous with respect to the required level for general admins who work at AFD. Above all, what truly disturbs me is her two absurd rationales: "sheer number" counting and the undue precaution against creating drama. Keilana, you shouldn't close any more AfDs until a thorough grasp of policy is demonstrated or more of your admin actions will be called in question. @pplecomplain14:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn. Closing the debate as a delete with appeal to voting and ignore all rules seems more than dubious to me. The closing administrator mentioned neutrality as an issue. However, the only reasonable neturality-related rationale for deleting this article would have been that the article represented a POV-fork of another article, but, frankly, that was not the rationale of the closing administrator. Instead the rationale of the administrator was that the subject was not NPOV. We have plentyofsubjects that are about ideas that are inherently POV. Judicious application of NPOV requires editors to make editorial decisions within articles. Deletion of articles because of "NPOV" is not a rationale that has community consensus. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think he meant by it being not NPOV is that having a separate article on the subject automatically created undue weight problems (just as it might if we had a separate article on say certain more obscure pseudoscientific claims). I'm not convinced by that argument, but it is valid enough that I'd support an admin who made that part of their decision. JoshuaZ (talk) 17:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. In fact, as has been said by a number of people here and in the AfD, we already have an article dedicated to obscure pseudo-scientific albeit popular claims, and that's Child Sexual Abuse. And let me repeat, they were about to be incorporated into the article that has just been deleted (remember the process was constantly bludgeoned). --TlatoSMD (talk) 17:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose & Overturn. I wouldn't go as far as saying that the CSA article is a POV fork, but it is not enough, as it does not encapsulate the subject, and due to its constrition to activity that is deemed abusive, will obviously not involve anything about archaic cultures, Ancient Greece or Indonesian Tribes etc. Also note that when seventy people argue/vote/whatever, it is particularly strange to delete an article with a consensus of ten, who probably came up with less valid arguments than the rest (note all the clones of "POV fork", "Delete with extreme prejudice", "Kill with fire" and "Pro pedophile agenda". It looks like this discussion is probably going down the same route, both in terms of the anti-intellectualism pointed boy by TlatoSMD, lack of reply to the claim that ACS is a neutral term and lack of consensus. digitalemotion18:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. The AfD was closed properly, by number of votes and by consensus in the debate. That's the policy part, and was correctly decided. On the topic issues, "Adult-child sex" is not a separate topic, it's a pedophile-propaganda POV term that is not used by anybody else in science or social contexts. Any content about history or other societies that has been mentioned on this page and in the AfD should be put into the child sexual abuse article, it should not have a separate POV fork that is against NPOV. --Tikilounge (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- I'll say this here, but it would fit under several comments on this page. I am not a pedophile, a pro-pedophile activist, a pedophile-propaganda-pusher, or any other vaguely insulting combination of words starting with P. I acted in good faith as did many others on both sides of the debate. It hurts to hear things like this being said. --SSBohio00:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The claim that the term would only be used by some private uneducated crusaders is sheer ignorance, or, regarding what many people here have pointed out before, a blatant lie. Even just Google Scholar alone lists several hundred scientific works using the term adult-child sex exactly because it's a neutral term, not even counting many derivations of it such as child-adult sexual interactions, sexual activity between children and adults, etc. Adult-child sex is a neutral term because it's purely descriptive, while the label Child Sexual Abuse is inherently interpretive and largely perscriptive, two things that are to be avoided by Wikipedia as per WP:NPOV. The numbers, which least of all matter because no majority vote, were a very close poll but only because most of the people voting for delete were mere per-above partisans. And again, the pseudo-science from Child Sexual Abuse would be duly incorporated, which was not possible in time due to constant bludgeoning of process. --TlatoSMD (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Question. Are you going to respond every comment that disagrees with you, with your same list of arguments that duplicate the AfD page? --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 20:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. As people keep coming here obviously without having read a single line of the discussions and thus that think they can keep repeating the same silly, patently false no-brainers that have been debunked a thousand times over in these debates, and as the closing admin obviously has used the piling-up of such inherently worthless votes to justify her decision, it seems necessary to update the debunking whenever the same no-brainers pop up. --TlatoSMD (talk) 21:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The most uncivil word was "silly". And "votes" without any actual, usable content are in effect worthless as they are no use. That was no judgment over the involved editors as people, it was an evaluation of the content of their contributions. --TlatoSMD (talk) 21:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. This article is not about a valid encyclopedic topic, or about a valid sociological practice. "Adult-child" sex refers to a wide range of behaviors, issues and problems. For articles on various sexual practices, we have articles on the concept, not the actual action or practice. "Adult-child" sex can be classfied within a variety of concepts, but each is distinct, such as pedophilia. It is the very marginality of this concept which makes it necessary to give it such a general, unspecific title, without refernce to any particular approach to this issue. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you think adult-child sex is such a valid concept, then why does it need a separate article at all? It should be covered the same as anything, under the article for "sex." We don't have an article for non-notable practices such as "cashier-customer sex", or anything like that. If this is relevant as a sociological concept, the title should be referring to a valid concept, such as pedophila, or other marginal practices. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 20:23, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Context: this was repeatedly discussed on the AfD. I apologize for crowding this page, but since proponents continue to quote the statistic, it needs a response. First, Google tests are not reliable, because they pull up irrelevant results and omit relevant results. For example, many of the "adult-child sex" Google Scholar results are for sentences like "Number and demographic characteristics of elderly co-resident parents by adult child's sex and age" - that describes an adult who is the child of an older adult, and is about gender, not sex. Also, for perspective, compare those 294 Google scholar hits to other related searches:
That's two orders of magnitude more pages for "child sexual abuse" than for "adult-child sex", three orders of magnitude greater for "child sexual abuse" when the word "abuse" is omitted from the searches for the term "adult-child sex".
Bottom line, Google tests, including Google Scholar, are not reliable for this decision. Even so, it's hard to ignore the huge difference, two to three orders of magnitude... supporting that "adult-child sex" is a fringe term, and a POV fork.
Besides, this is a DRV, not an AfD, so none of this is relevant anyway, the closer of the AfD made a proper decision according to policy. Google hits for a POV fork is not a valid reason to overturn an AfD closure. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What are those 37 pages about, aside from the one you mentioned above? Since the number is so low, its possible to come up with a concrete number of pages listed by Google Scholar that mention adult-child sexual activity. Avruchtalk21:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) You can see them all by clicking on the link I posted above. There're only four pages. It seems like there are a few categories. Since it's Google Scholar, many go to abstracts of papers where the abstract does not include the search term, but the paper does, so the actual text is not available. But even in those, there are clearly off-topic examples such as "Social Support During Adjustment to Later-Life Divorce How Adult Children Help Parents", and several medical articles, such as one about Alzheimers that states " In addition, caregiver demographics (eg, spouse vs. adult child, sex, and ethnicity) may influence the FTLD caregiving experience. ... ", and an article about automated ticketing systems that states "an attribute of a user of the ticket (eg, adult/child, sex, birth year, etc)"; there are a couple articles about pornography; there are some that include citations to the few studies such as Rind et al, that are routinely cited by activists seeking to normalize the term (ie, POV fork), and a book that states "Paedophilia emerges as an issue which has made 'adult child' sex more plausible than before, hence raising greater fears.", which is another source supporting that it's a POV fork. It's possible I missed something, though I think that's a pretty good summary. The link is above if anyone wants to check further. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, on consideration, its only fair to point out that most articles discussing adult-child sex in the way meant by this article also at least mention abuse. Avruchtalk21:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Yes, that's true, and that supports that it is a POV fork. The point of that search is to see if there are any mentions of adult-child sex as separate from abuse, in other words, that are not connected to the main topic of child sexual abuse. If not, then it should not have a separate article, because it's a POV fork of the same topic. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One quick note, I'm not going to continuing arguing here about the Google searches. I don't think this is the purpose of the DRV. I only added this info because others were quoting what appeared to be impressive numbers, so it seemed a response was needed for persepctive. But this is a DRV, not an AfD, and those arguments are all off-topic. The DRV was properly closed and reflected the well-reasoned consensus that the article was a POV fork and needed to be deleted according to policy. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jack, you asserted that your search term was significant to this discussion when you included it above. If you don't support it, then what weight should it have here? --SSBohio00:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Google tests, even Google Scholar, are undependable for this kind of decision, for many reasons, including picking up off-topic pages and missing on-topic pages that don't use the exact phrase. Since Google numbers were quoted on this page as a rationale for notability of the term, I showed with examples that the quoted 294 Google Scholar hits do not reveal anything significant; that there are two orders of magnitude more for the main term "child sexual abuse", 35,600 Scholar hits,and that by removing the word "abuse" from those 294 pages, the number goes down by another order of magnitude. The result shows that 294 G-Scholar-hits is unconvincing and irrelevant. Other than that, there is no weight. This entire thread is a digression, but it was needed, because the invalid argument about the 294 pages gave an illusory view of notability for a non-notable WP:FRINGE term, and required deflation in the interests of fairness and accuracy. None of that changes the fact that the AfD was properly closed per WP:CONSENSUS and the WP:NPOV#POV fork was properly deleted.--Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn for many reasons. One, the closing admin didn't put as much effort into making this decision as it deserved. To be fair, not only would they have to read through all the arguments on the AfD, but imo, also look through all the arguments on the talk page and at various versions of the article itself. With so much massive editing being done even while the AfD was going on, one can't just look at the current version and make a decision based on that. Rather than assuming that everything that was said in the AfD was true it would have been better to look at the article and how it has evolved and then decide whether it was hopeless or if it could be improved. I know that would have taken a long time but I think most of us would have had less to complain about if the closing admin took more than an hour to make her decision. The fact that she initially didn't give any reasons makes it look like it was a very lazy decision. Now that she given her reasons for making the decision we can easily pick them apart.
Sheer numbers - First of all, we need to accept the fact that AFD has very votelike tendencies. There was a majority to delete, especially when SPAs were discounted.
The reason why AfD shouldn't be considered a straight vote is because the closing admin is supposed to take into account all of the arguments and weigh them accordingly. If there are more delete votes but they all consist of "Delete per whatever" and there are less keep votes but they all present better arguments then the right decision would be to go with the "Keeps". As I pointed out above, many of the delete arguments were invalid because they weren't even arguments at all, just votes with no effort put into their reasons. However many of the keep arguments were well thought out such as: Homologeo, Karla Lindstrom, TlatoSMD, Strichmann & Ssbohio and many others. Not to mention the fact that the only reason why she believed there were some SPA's who voted for keep was because a delete voter made up the accusation with no proof and it was just accepted as true with no question.
WP:NPOV - The NPOV policy is a pillar of the Wikipedia community; this article clearly violated that pillar.
First of all, saying that something "clearly violates a rule" without explaining why it does is just hiding the fact that you don't have a reason for why you believe it violates that rule. It only seems to violate NPOV for those people who can't ignore their own POV while reading it. Besides, this article wasn't meant to discuss a POV, it wasn't meant to be solely about who believes ACS is harmful, how many believe it and for how long. Most of that can be covered in CSA. It was meant to be much broader than that. Read the article on abortion and you'll see that the discussion about who thinks it's good or bad is just one section of it. Other sections include definitions, incidence, lists of different types of abortions, a history of... section and many others. The point is that even though there is a huge debate surrounding abortion the article doesn't have to concentrate on it because there are many other topics to write about.
It was also an obvious POV fork, as nothing in the article was unwritten elsewhere.
By definition, a POV fork would have to say something different than the original article for it to be considered a POV fork! if everything in an article exists in another article then that would make it redundant, or a summary article if it exists in more than one article.
WP:IAR - I do think it was best for the encyclopedia to delete the article. If my deletion is overturned, then the article will be back at AFD within 6 months, creating more drama etc. Wikipedia articles are not the place to express your views of what is right and wrong.
If the article is continuously renominated every six months then that would be disruptive. It would have been best for the encyclopedia for us to work together to but nobody was interested in that. Ospinad (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest that it would be much less than 6 months to another afd if the deletion were overturned based on the actions of one administrator, 6 days would be a more accutrate figure, IMhO. Thanks, SqueakBox23:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I dont understand the question but I thought my comment was easily understandable. Let me reframe, if the closing admin made a mistake in the way she closed (ie not giving a reason) rthyat does not mean we should then have to deal with the article for another 6 months solely because of that. Thanks, SqueakBox23:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't know whether you yourself would start another afd within a week, but anyone who does must be the most self-centred, disruptive uncompromising little brat, etc etc. Is that you? digitalemotion00:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well that is your opinion, I find the little brat a little hilarious as it refers to young people if also sadly reflecting your state of mind, DE. My opinion is that we should not restore the article merely on the basis that the closing admin allegedly did not close properly, that simply would not be a reason to restore the article, and given this what other solution would there be (in this hypothetical situation other than another afd. Thanks, SqueakBox00:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How does that differ from your words in the AfD to the effect that you had a strategy to achieve the article's deletion regardless of the AfD's outcome? Process is important and shouldn't be used like a magic eight ball; You can't just try it over and over until it agrees with you. And as to Digital Emotion's comments above, they weren't very nice, but you'd do well to remember that you've used similar language and worse in referring to other editors. People in glass houses and all that... --SSBohio00:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Steve, of course process is important, and at the end of the day I accept hundreds of wikipedia decisions that go against what I want. It was you who said the afd should be snowballed but that isn't what the community thought. And I certainly didn't influence Keilana's decision any more than anyone else did. But if the community decides she closed wrongly that is not a reason to restore the article for 6 months. Thanks, SqueakBox01:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. "Allegedly did not close properly", Squeak? 0.o The closing admin's rationale others have shoved on to her after she'd done everything has been ripped apart by not only a large number of users here, but also by many admins even. Quoting even just from what admins had to say about her closure and the provided reasons: "big mistake", "irresponsibility", "incapacity", "quite exiguous understanding of deletion criteria", "you shouldn't close any more AfDs until a thorough grasp of policy is demonstrated", "very lazy decision", "just hiding the fact that you don't have a reason", "can't ignore their own POV". --TlatoSMD (talk) 02:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Saying the argument is not serious doesn't actually provide any counter to it. It merely dismisses another editor's good faith contribution to the discussion. The point that the closing admin gave no rationale for deletion and apparently came up with one after the fact goes to the heart of this DRV. Can we at least agree that this was a controversial deletion? A controversial deletion is especially needful of a detailed, logical rationale. --SSBohio05:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion. The administrator was right to delete the article because there were more people who said it should be deleted and their reasons made way more sense. The smaller number of people who wanted to keep it argued with long complicated reasons like here and the talk page. But it's still child sexual abuse, not a separate subject, so it shouldn't have a separate article. More people voted to delete and their reasons fit the Wikirules better. The NPOV rule is the most important one and it says that all the sides of a subject should be in the same article. --Linda (talk) 08:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Wow, just, wow. People who wanted to keep it argued with long complicated reasons indeed, whereas many delete !votes were monosyllabic. One would think that well fleshed-out, detailed reasons would have more weight than WP:PERNOM; what you're saying is that those reasons went over your head, so you rather went with gut feeling? Or maybe just tl;dr? Bikasuishin (talk) 09:59, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Bikasuishin's insulting comment. That was an obnoxious thing to write about me and totally wrong. I made my note short to be nice and not state the obvious. But you want me to explain so OK I'll write it for you.
The minority who want to keep the article need long complicated arguments to defend their weak position.
Delete arguments were short because it's easy to see that it's a spin-off article against the NPOV wikirules.
All the page-keeping arguments are in the article on Pro-pedophile activism, even the stuff about the Bonobo apes.
So no -- those reasons did not go over my head -- that you wrote in your insult. A POV spin-off is totally against the wikirules and that's what the consensus of the AfD showed so the administrator who deleted was following the wikirules just right. --Linda (talk) 05:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Apology. I didn't mean to be insulting and take that tactless reaction back if it offended you. Your comment appeared to me as unabashed anti-intellectualism, which tends to tick me off; sorry. That some of the arguments put forward by Keep !voters in the AfD may also be used occasionally by pro-pedophile activists, however, shouldn't dispense us from assessing them on their own merits. Discarding them for that reason is a clear case of association fallacy. Not everyone who argues that ACS isn't necessarily abuse and attempts to approach that touchy subject in a nonjudgmental manner is a pro-pedophile activist--by a long shot. I hope none but the worst ignorami would portray Michel Foucault, say, as a pro-pedophile activist. Bikasuishin (talk) 13:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn The primary rationale given for deletion was that the article was a POV fork. This is a total fallacy, therefore the deletion should be overturned.
The vast majority of scholarly thought says that adult-child sex is not inherently abusive. Editors provided over 100 academic resources to this affect. Anyone who still trots out "POV fork" is either:
(a) pursuing an agenda/policy other than the desire to create a factually correct, reliable encyclopedia; or
(b) being wilfully blind
- there is no other possible conclusion.
I do not know how I can be any clearer on this point. Majority scholarly thought = adult-child sex is not inherently abusive. The ACS article cannot therefore be a "POV fork" of child sexual abuse. Res ipsa loquitur. Strichmann (talk) 10:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn: consensus was not established and no reasonable arguments were presented in favour of deletion. "Adult-child sex" is not a fringe term. For instance, it is used by David Finkelhor, who has a clear agenda against adult-child sex and is without a doubt the most prominent researcher in the area.[2]AnotherSolipsist (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Facts.David Finkelhor's rare use of the term "adult-child sex" strongly supports that it is a POV fork, because he makes it clear in his Sourcebook on Child Sexual Abuse and 150 or so other publications using the term "child sexual abuse" extensively, that there is no "adult-child sex" that's not abuse. If anyone wants to research further to confirm the tiny number of times used the fringe term "adult-child sex", here are a couple links to his organization, the Crimes against Children Research Center, with some of his publications online for free: Sexual Abuse Papers, Publications directory. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. That's because of the polemic function of Finkelhor's work and his organization. In order to remain debatable and respectable, he needs to define CSA as a form of sexual activity between adults and children beforehand. That's what he's done ever since his seminal essay What's wrong with sex between adults and children? in 1979. All his later works are endless variations of that one. --TlatoSMD (talk) 19:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. The fact remains, he's rarely used the term, and whenever he has, he's indicated that it is "abuse". It's not up to the closer of this DRV to guess why David Finkelhor made that choice. The term is still a fringe term and a handful of uses by Finklehor saying that it's always "abuse" does nothing more than establish further than the the AfD was correct to delete the article as a WP:FRINGE view WP:NPOV#POV fork. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. You still have to prove your assertion of fringe. As we all know Google Scholar is a very limited resource, and you even discount all works that also contain the word abuse from those search results which happens to be not too good an idea since thereby you discount all following Finkelhor's strategy as well as those questioning the common assumption that it's inherently abusive. And once again, we're not even looking for linguistic derivates. Another issue is that we're lacking any proper definition of fringe. How many hundreds or thousands of academic works do you need? This alleged fringe issue is getting more and more ridiculous as we've established several times already that the prevalent academic and scientific position is that it's not abusive, especially if you're discounting pseudo-scientific, uncritically affirmative sources like Finkelhor. Those "magnitudes" you're citing are basing their uncritical vocabulary on a narrow legal construct and derivates of Finkelhor. "If that's what my local judge, Fox News, and this one self-help guide against depression are calling it, so will I!" --TlatoSMD (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but... ...I don't see any value in continuing this thread. The idea that an adult using a four-year old child for sexual gratification could be anything other than pure abuse is so far from the mainstream that there is no way to have a real debate on the topic. You believe you've "established several times already that the prevalent academic and scientific position is that it's not abusive" and you've elsewhere described the American Psychological Association and the National Institutes of Health as"pseudo-scientific" sources. You are entitled to your beliefs, but that does not change the fringe nature of those statements. The point is, the AfD was correctly closed by deleting the POV fork, by numbers and by reasoning, correctly reflecting the consensus. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:48, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Please refrain from resorting to extreme, unrealistic examples in highly charged language that are most likely entirely unrelated to what we're talking about. If you wish to talk about rape of toddlers in sensationalist detail, this is not the place. --TlatoSMD (talk) 19:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In what way was that unrealistic? You said that adult-child sex is not abusive, so what's the problem? Were you referring to a different kind of adult-child sex? Would a six-year or seven-year old old be a better example? --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. You're slowly getting there, at least regarding the age factor. You still have an uncanny inclination for heavily charged language though. As for unrealistic, you can find detailed accounts regarding the purely imaginary figures of occurrence of either CSA or ACS, endlessly parotted in campaigning and polemic sources using the same charged language and bizarre descriptions as you, in academic works such as Schuijer & Rossen 1992 for North-America, and the equivalent history of such imaginary figures directly copied from US sources in the Continental European media in Rutschky & Reinhartt 1994. I wish I could link you to the WP article on Recovered Memory Therapy to demonstrate another factor that pushed the figures and bizarreness all sky high, but unfortunately that article lately is entirely owned by supporters of the concept. --TlatoSMD (talk) 20:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Let's set that unsavory strawman of yours aside (blabla is not always such and such doesn't contradict the fact that some instances of blabla are such and such, as elementary logic teaches us), and allow me instead to quote from WP:WEIGHT: If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts. It is remarkable that proponents of the "ACS must but CSA" viewpoint have generally failed to do so--Finkelhor is pretty much the only academic source they could come up with, while many scholars could be cited opposing this view. Bikasuishin (talk) 20:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. What's so "unique" about asking that the understanding of the majority of scientific and academic sources will be used? --TlatoSMD (talk) 20:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's unique to believe that Finkelhor is the only source describing adult-child sex as child abuse, when in reality there are thousands of them. You are welcome to continue writing here, but I'm done with this thread. I don't think it's helpful at this point. The AfD was properly closed. The deleted page was fringe view and a POV fork, shown by consensus in the AfD. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly didn't claim that Finkelhor was the only source in existence describing ACS as CSA, and I'd rather you didn't put words in my mouth that way. Actually, I'm pretty sure there are a few more, although "thousands of them" sounds like a huge number pulled out of thin air. I merely pointed out that those supposedly numerous scholarly sources were sorely missing from the Reference sections of relevant articles, even though there doesn't seem to be a lack of dedicated editors liable to search for them. Anyway, I'll probably leave it at that too. Bikasuishin (talk) 21:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Are there procedural arguments for undoing the deletion in this case? As many have noted, it is not Afd 2. The deletion discussion has been had, and the article has been deleted. So rather than focus your arguments on rehashing the basis for deletion, please provide some reasons why it was deleted out of process or incorrectly. The lack of a deletion rationale or a misinterpretation of consensus would be useful arguments to make (and some have made these arguments, but many comments are rehashing the AfD.). Avruchtalk20:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As several admins have already said, entirely disputed closure due to violation of all known deletion policies by closing admin, incorrect application of policies by closing admin, and the total lack of any consensus whatsoever. --TlatoSMD (talk) 20:27, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed Tlato's comment... While I disagree with Keilana's decision to delete, but there was no failure to follow all known deletion policies. The closing admin took a commendable and courageous step in deciding there was a consensus to delete when even the most ardent proponents of keeping or deleting would agree that the discussion was quite contentious. I fear that there might have been an entirely understandable rush to judgment arising out of false logical constructs such as appeal to majority, begging the question, and the straw man. That Keilana made any attempt at all is to be applauded, not castigated. --SSBohio01:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this page should not be another bout of the AfD. You're right to urge people to discuss the reasoning provided by Keilana for closing the AfD and deleting the article. Right after she posted her reasons on the Talk Page attached to this Deletion Review, a number of editors responded in the same place. In addition to this main page, please direct your attention there for elaboration on why the AfD was closed inappropriately and why deletion was definitely not warranted. ~ Homologeo (talk) 12:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would be good to focus on the issues surrounding the closure of the debate rather than the issues in the debate all over again. I think we can all agree that the main issue in the debate is the POV fork issue: that is the reason given for deletion from most of the delete comments, and it is a valid reason for deletion, with solid precedent. A lot of the comments here are from people upset that their arguments weren't taken as the superior one, but frankly no admin would ever be able to choose one side's argument over the other as to whether or not the article was a POV fork because it's not an objective issue but a subjective one. Instead, the admin would have to look at to what degree the community was persuaded by the arguments - in other words, to look at the numbers. Since we're now talking about levels of support it becomes inappropriate to discount comments that give only opinions and not reasoning. What we should be talking about are basically the following things:
Whose opinions, if anyone's, should be discounted?
What, if anything, influenced the participation in the debate?
Based on that, which side's argument was most convincing, and by how much? Was it a clear majority? If not, was it too close to draw a judgement?
Obviously no one closing this debate is going to take seriously the claim that we should dismiss the opinions of those many users who simply agreed that the article was a POV fork without expounding on the subject - that would be like saying they have no basis for an opinion at all, and surely any reasonable closer would not choose sides to that degree. Mangojuicetalk21:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mango, I'm with you in broad terms, but the idea of giving equal weight to unsupported citations of policy seems to go against the concept of consensus-building. The nominator asserted it was a POV fork, but didn't say in what way. A sizable number of deletes and a less sizable number of keeps gave no rationale for doing so. Compare saying the article is a POV fork with saying the article is a POV fork because of X, Y, and Z. Which of these is the stronger argument? Should each have equal weight? Per WP:AfD, I think not. --SSBohio01:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. It's pretty tough trying to refute a gut feeling of "POV fork" that nobody tried to substantiate with any references or good reasoning. The fact the burden of proof lies with those people making that claim doesn't change now that an admin chose to delete. That's why those votes were as good as saying "I don't like it!" --TlatoSMD (talk) 01:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That seems reasonable. Out of curiosity, I'd be interested to know the breakdown of admin votes as well. The reason I had put the header in "Votes after posting to AN/I" is because it was clear that the direction changed at that point in a dramatic way - suddenly 10 or however many admins posted delete all at once. Avruchtalk22:13, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a phenomenon I've seen benefit each faction in previous attempts to achieve consensus regarding this article. Editors who generally haven't edited the article much at all would suddenly show up, ardent in their support for one position or the other. How does this happen? It would be imprudent to speculate whether participants were canvassing; the effect is the same either way. In this AfD, the tide did seem to shift when the deletion discussion was highlighted at the administrators' noticeboard. In a smaller way, I think that the refactoring of comments and the mention (by an admin) of an off-wiki attack site each had a chilling effect on the discussion, but moreso on the keep side. Was any of this improper? It's a debatable point. But, we have to acknowledge that each of these influences needed to be accounted for when determining whether there was a consensus to delete. --SSBohio01:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked for the arguments presented for deletion. I don't see them. There are pages of material to go through, so my missing them is possible, if not likely. Where did you see such arguments? I think a good step in this discussion would be to summarize the arguments made to keep or delete the article. --SSBohio01:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Nobody questions Wikipedia's obligation for NPOV, and questioning that obligation is what runs against that one foundation issue. What we found absolutely no consensus over is whether this one article or any part of it had any POV or POV fork issues, and that's clearly a different matter, so referring to a policy referring to the questioning of established policy is pretty moot. Nobody was questioning any Wikipedia policies. --TlatoSMD (talk) 02:19, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, what you wrote is inaccurate, that "we found absolutely no consensus". There is consensus to delete the POV fork, it just doesn't happen to be the consensus you want. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Further emphasizing my support for overturning in light of the deleting admin using IAR to close the AfD. While it's a nice gesture to think you are sparing the community from drama, there are some things that, by their nature, are unavoidable for some drama. We do not put our heads in the sands for those topics, even if they are a long term pain in the butt. -- Ned Scott14:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion Despite the comment immediately above my own, I disagree with TlatoSMD's assertion that the delete votes were various permutations of icky. My own argument had been that the proponents' interpretation of WP:NPOV was flawed: neutrality does not mean an average of all historical practices or opinions, or else Wikipedia would have articles that appear to legitimize obsolete practices such as medical bloodletting. As such, this article was a POV fork. This isn't a vote, and well-reasoned policy analysis can be more important than sheer numbers. DurovaCharge!07:16, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the majority of scholarly (rather than populist) thought on an issue says one thing, yet Wikipedia admins choose to dismiss scholarly thought as a 'POV fork', it becomes pretty clear what value can be placed on their interpretation of "neutrality". Strichmann (talk) 08:43, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm disappointed at how many editors think that the word "abuse" in the article title suddenly makes it WP:NPOV. Tiananmen Square Massacre redirects to another title, even though it was a massacre by any reasonable definition, just because the word "massacre" is non-neutral. In light of that, I find it somewhat Orwellian when "X abuse" is considered NPOV, and "X" is considered a POV fork. It's amazing how many experienced admins apparently fell for this fallacy. There is even a whole paragraph in WP:NPOV that specifically addresses that ("Let the facts speak for themselves"). The article doesn't need to include non-neutral words in the title to prove that something is bad. Grue 09:58, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn Lots of interesting stuff going on here, but the case for overturning is simple: We had not reached consensus, and thoughtful closing rationales (not post-hoc IAR!) are not optional for such contentious discussions. — brighterorange (talk)15:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse deletion I believe that the argument for deletion was sufficiently sound and that the closing admin was well within the bounds of the discretion given them in these matters by the deletion policies.--Dycedargж06:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
question -- Something the closing admin said, in their private explanation for their closing decision confused me:
WP:IAR - I do think it was best for the encyclopedia to delete the article. If my deletion is overturned, then the article will be back at AFD within 6 months, creating more drama etc. Wikipedia articles are not the place to express your views of what is right and wrong.
I thought the whole point of deletion review was to make a determination as to whether the wikipedia's policies and procedures had been observed in a deletion? I thought every deleted article, that had its deletion overturned, automatically got a new {{afd}} instantiated, so the merits of keeping it, merging it, deleting it, could be re-done in a way that did conform to policy? Isn't that why trying to discuss the actual pros and cons of the article is not supposed to be allowed in this forum?
Answer Renomination for deletion is not automatic. At the close of a DRV where a deletion is overturned, any editor who wishes may renominate for deletion. It is entirely possible that no one will choose to do so immediately because the reason for overturning will be because the previous debate failed to reach a consensus, and any ensuing debate is unlikely to as well.--Dycedargж18:31, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
overturn deletion -- Wikipolicy was not followed. Deletion should be overturned. IMO, since administrators have to deal with newbies and vandals, who are not conforming with policy, it is absolutely essential that they ALWAYS conform to policy -- no matter what, because we need to be able to count on them providing an example. Conforming to policy may be a lot more work. I know administrators are just volunteers, with full, rich lives outside the wikipedia. But each administrative action they take is a choice. And, every time, the administrator should ask themselves?
"Do I have the time and energy to take this action, and answer questions about it, in a way that fully conforms to policy?"
I'm with Until here. The closing admin cited WP:IAR but wasn't ignoring deletion policy. If anything, the admin was citing WP:IAR to justify closing this case with an outcome other than "no consensus" despite the count being a bit close. Mangojuicetalk16:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify my reasoning here. I used IAR as one of my deletion rationales because I felt that closing the debate as "no consensus" would be detrimental to the encyclopedia. Keilana|Parlez ici16:09, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What aspects of policy weren't followed? Isn't the closing admin responsible for leaving an explanation of the reasoning behind their concluding decision, when they close an {{afd}}? The closing admin failed to do so. We are not mind-readers. I'm sorry, but I believe admins acting as being responsible to offer an explanation of their use of the authority granted to them by the wikipedia community is not explanation of the reasoning of the concluding decision should not be considered optional.
Yes, I am sure almost all of us agree that children are vulnerable innocents, with unformed characters, who lack the physical strength and world experience to rebuff sexual advances from older individuals. I am sure almost all of us agree that the idea of adults forcing children to have sex is repugnant. But that topics are controversial, or even repugnant, is not a valid reason for deletion. No offense, the closing admin's comments suggest that they were improperly swayed by their repugnance for the topic of the article. With sufficient effort it is possible to cover controversial topics, even those some or all wikipedians find repugnant, from a neutral point of view. Geo Swan (talk) 02:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't it time we changed the no consensus' equals keep policy, which IMO is at the heart of the problem, and is an outdated policy feature that is contradicted by many newer policies such as WP:BLP and WP:RS (the latter because it is for the person who adds material who needs to justify it). Thanks, SqueakBox16:15, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While this is not the forum, I think it is fine to default to keep when lacking a consensus. The trick is to judge the consensus based on peoples understanding and application of policy and reason, then there will be no disparity. (1 == 2)Until16:22, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It was tough just to say "delete" and not leave any kind of explanation or rationale? Man, I hope she didn't lose too much sweat. -✰ALLSTAR✰echo19:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This was a difficult job to take on and I respect Keilana for doing so. There was no doubt the next step would be DRV whatever was done; she had to work under that pressure. I agree with Rlevse, 1==2 and Mango's comments in this section, she closed with proper procedure and the correct decision, both by numerical count and by reasoning of the commenters based on NPOV core-policy. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
