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CN/Fact Request

Can I get someone to toss a CN/Fact after the sentance: "To consider pro-pedophile activism as a valid political or civil rights activist movement is also unpopular." please? -- True or not, there is nothing cited, thus it deserves to be tagged. --76.213.169.164 (talk) 23:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

In order to abuse...

The opening sentence of this article seems to hold a strong bias supposing to know the motivations of the movement/activists. Seeing as how it's unlikely that people are literally arguing for abuse, they do not perceive it as abuse. Since there is a difference of opinion, simply describing more blatent goals without relative descriptiors would probably bring more neutrality to the article. The name of the article is also somewhat biased, in that actions classed under this may not be blatent enough to be activism, may not be done for pedophiles or by pedophiles exclusively (or primarily). Obviously it could be, so the label should remain, as should opposing references, and then all varying terms can redirect to a neutral article title. Someone should think of a neutral title like this. Possibly pro/anti could be in a single articie as in *blank*-related activism or *blank*-related controversy. Articles on activism on the internet are altogether pretty confusing seeing as how discerning what is notable is rather difficult to ascertain. Tyciol (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's totally biased. I agree that these people are abusing the children, but that kind of sentence would NEVER be put in a real encyclopedia as it's so BLATANTLY biased. Why the hell is this article still protected? 64.230.84.232 (talk) 08:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, this is just stupid. 24.211.192.53 (talk) 06:24, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why there's a need for adjectives like 'totally' for terms like bias, such things are better described by 'strong' or 'weak' seeing as how they are about relative concepts, 'totally'/'wholly' or 'partial' are terms usually applied to quantitative amounts. This would be, the relative composition of biased to unbiased contributing emotions to an opinion, the ratios of which are not really relevant. Even comparing strong or weak biases is relatively irrelevant, because it isn't the people's bias that is being measured, but rather that relative to the neutrality of a statement. I'm guessing the article is still protected due to disagreements surrounding it. I'm not really in any mood to unprotect it until consensus can be reached on the direction to take and good changes to make, however if you feel that has been reached it would make sense to contact whatever moderator closed it and request it to be unprotected. I would think they would only listen to named contributors and not people only contributing through IP proxy, however. So if you have an account, you'd best use that, or get one. Your disclaimer as to your agreement with the unsourced biased statement is interesting. The use of 'people' is far too broad, what people tend to do varies a great deal, and what they are doing can only be determined through observation. Tyciol (talk) 00:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it is biased. I believe the opening sentence should read: "Pro-pedophile activism or Pro-paedophile activism (Commonwealth usage) encompasses pro-pedophile organizations and activists that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response in order to allow pedophiles to enter into a relationship with a child." 75.2.2.174 (talk) 19:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

While the word 'encompasses' is not incorrect, the absense of other things the term could be used to describe can give the mistaken impression that the examples given are what the thing is composed of entirely. Your description seems too specific, especially since there is no actual organization with official statements, nor any agreement amongst individuals who either claim to be or are labeled as part of such activism efforts. For example, I've never encountered anything that specifies only pedophiles should be allowed in such relationships, the statements tend to be broad such as 'all adults' or 'everyone' or something to that effect. Words like 'relationship' on the other hand, are excessively broad. Since relationship can include things like friendships of an asexual nature, such things are obviously already legal. You would have to specify literal things such as activities and acts to actually represent the underlying topics of such vague descriptors. While such efforts do seem to deal with both law and cultural response, neither the stated purpose or expected outcome is, in all cases, that end. Some expectations (stated ones at least) appear more conservative, and some motivations/intentions (stated ones at least) more altruistic. The difficulty is that statements and true intentions in any sort of effort can often be contradictory, and on issues like this with high emotional runnings, both sides tend to be paranoid of those with disserting views who would demonize each others' intentions and ignore flaws in themself or their 'own'. The siding that happens (which seems to happen with all sorts of social issues) skews progressive understanding. Tyciol (talk) 00:19, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:NPOV: The very first sentence of this article is in complete violation of WP:NPOV and should be edited. The sentence reads, Pro-pedophile activism or Pro-paedophile activism (Commonwealth usage) encompasses pro-pedophile organizations and activists that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response in order to allow pedophiles to sexually abuse children. The part in bold is POV and should be changed to something more neutral such as to allow pedophiles to have sex with children. What's considered criminal pedophilia here in the U.S., isn't considered so in some other countries. Granted, our society holds the view that pedophilia is sick and immoral, that personal view should not be allowed to influence editing of this article, or any other article on Misplaced Pages. -- ALLSTARecho 08:59, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

And what about the references and the link? How should they be dealt with? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The reference that is a book and not really a link to where it can be freely read without me having to go buy the book or go to the library? That reference? Or the reference to WND which is a Christian POV "news" web site? -- ALLSTARecho 17:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Well I can't comment on the US as it isn't here for me but I am amazed that you have editprotedt templated thisn thread. Lest wait for mediation to finish or find a resolution on this page. I firmly disagree with your comments re NPOV and absolutely oppose editing the first paragraphe, which is the cause of the dispute, while the article is locked. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sexual abuse is fine. (HAHA) Having sex with children can be described as "sexual abuse" whether on not it is legal in a jurisdiction. There is plenty on psychological evidence to demonstrate that since children cannot give informed consent to such acts, and it does them long-term psychological harm it can be and would be called abuse, even if the head of NAMBLA were elected and it was legalised. Lobojo (talk) 19:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Terms like 'abuse' don't tend to be very clear. For example, commonly it can mean to say 'abuse a priviledge' or 'abuse a position'. To use wrongly, or misuse, to use badly, something to that effect. Expressions like 'take advantage of' are also sometimes used synonymously, even though that phrase is not inherantly negative like the word abuse is. For example a positive statement would be 'while out on a walk I took advantage of the opportunity to smell flowers'. A problem I can see is the word 'abuse' describes an improper action, but there is often an implication that an action considered improper is synonymous with harm or damage. For example, if I were to jaywalk, I am abusing my priviledge as a citizen to be expected to remain within the law, but I won't necessarily cause an accident. The idea that 'children cannot give informed consent' is based upon the assumption that children are 'uninformed'. What is 'informed' is not strictly defined, nor directly evaluated. If one were to define the term 'child' as 'one who is uninformed' and directly measure that status based upon not having demonstrated informedness, that would be accurate.

Currently, the law takes some assumptions (presumptions? not sure which word..) of informedness based upon the amount of time that has passed since a person has exited the womb. Assumptions are fine and very utilitarian for the drafting of laws, but to use such performance-based generalizations as some sort of psychological evidence makes no sense at all. The problem with psychological case studies is that while they can most certainly come to (often very accurate) conclusions about a population, these conclusions are both impersonal (they do not take account of the sometimes drastic differences between individual capacity and deviation from the average) and dated in that they assess that generation, and do not take into account differences between degree of informedness of successive generations due to changes in cultural, spread of memes and enhancements to the education process.

Rather than things like 'informedness', I would say the more reliable case studies in psychiatry centre around the ability to make rational thought without being impeded or distracted by emotion, analyzing from a biological standpoint things like impulsiveness and recklessness. These are more chemical and measurable by biological and genetic markers (such as those which engage throughout the maturation process) compared to learning (nurture)-based things like informedness. Informedness is still a factor that is influenced by one's biological ability to learn, of course, and probably also is how the information would be processed. These subtleties are not often addressed or discussed seriously in visible discussion though, they seem to be generalized and unimportant, taking a back seat to grasping for anything that can support one's stance which was reached through either emotion or subconscious/past forgotten decisionmaking (if that's the right word). The problem with that is that it does not do these valid concerns' justice, and through not indulging doubters in explanation nor exploration of the ideas, gives them cause to not consider them seriously and simply throw out the concerns reached by professionals due to inadequate representation of them by anti-advocates.

Reiteration from authority is something that should be done in a competant matter less the wisdom gained by the authority is lost and as such ignored by people who would go on to ignorantly cause harm to children by considering themselves correct simply due to being superior to a straw man argument ignorantly thrust at them by people who do not deign to fully explore or explain the more extensive arguments against child sex given by more competant psychiatric authorities. A large problem may be that psychiatric organizations will state a stance or conclusion, and leave it up to people to find papers. People who like the conclusions of the organization may only reference their conclusions, and not the process of how they were reached, which can be unsatisfying for some who desire to understand the theoretical basis of sciences, especially very subtle and conceptual sciences like psychology. Tyciol (talk) 00:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

tl;dr 75.16.113.54 (talk) 18:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Holy shit this needs changing, and fast. It's a huge and blatant bias, right there in the first line! Can someone contact an admin urgently to fix this glaring mistake? 219.77.142.24 (talk) 16:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have again removed the template. There is currently mediation ongoing about this issue. That alone is sufficient proof that there is no current consensus to change this. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Where? Can you please link to it? 219.77.133.102 (talk) 16:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Contact the WP:MEDCOM, ryan is leading the mediation. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I have rewritten the introduction and left some of it intact. Phew, what a mess! Some of the information seemed relevant to other related articles but wasn't directly relevant to pro-pedophile activism, and there were many grammatical errors and repeats of things already mentioned a paragraph before. I also removed that one quote at the end which I felt was irrelevant to any factual overview. I think the loud, overt bias has been largely removed from this section. It seems as though some people couldn't stand to read the introduction more than twice or something and just threw in information which didn't belong trying to make it more normal. My version needs improvement and additions still as I'm not an expert on this topic, but I think it was the best way to go for the time being as although the section is much shorter, it much more closely resembles an encyclopedia-quality article than before.

Kst447 (talk) 07:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well reversing it to its exact previous state was a huge improvement. Thanks for nothing, I don't know why I bother.

Kst447 (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I took a break from following/observing these skirmishes a few months ago, and you're still warring off-wiki over the opening? 75.16.113.54 (talk) 18:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Skepticism that the movement does not support child abuse

The whole chapter about "Skepticism that the movement does not support child abuse" is bullshit, because pro-pedophilia activism is in essence the claim that child-adult sexual relationships are not harmful in all cases. So you can list all the penalties and jail sentences those activists have had and say "we are skeptical that they do not support child abuse" but to those activists their contacts were not child abuse. That's what all this pro-pedophilia activism is about. The fact that this page even has that section is bias. It should be removed or moved to the anti-pedophile activism, because it's anti-pedophilia activism to list what judges have said and what sentences pedophiles have had. It has NOTHING to do with pro-pedophile activism. --62.194.194.24 (talk) 22:38, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, we are talking about skepticism of this PPA movement, that has nothing to do with APA. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Commonwealth usage

{{editprotected}} The "commonwealth usage" alternative spelling in the lead should be eliminated since the wp way is to have american or british (etc) spelling consistently throughout each article and not to use both. Abtract (talk) 19:31, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand policy, we should certainly use just one form throughout (in this case American) but that does not exclude pointing out the differences in the opning. I would oppose such an edit to remove the commonwealth bit from the opening. For example, see color, rumor and a long et al. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with SqueakBox. Edit request denied due to it being a misunderstanding. --Deskana (talk) 19:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

OK thanks for considering it. Abtract (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

First lines are OK (let this be said again)

There is nothing wrong with the first lines of the article, or with the whole of it - it is factual. The individuals who think certain fragments should be deleted or changed are either not aware of what the so-called pedophile "movement" is doing, or (more probably) are pedophile supporters and actual child abusers themselves who are trying to bring about serious societal changes that they think could be beneficial for their group. They are doing this by using mind-mixing rhetorics present in many posts on this page, in which they try to present themselves as victims of social intolerance or even "liberators" of children, which is as ridiculous as it is scary. Also, there seems to be no need to change the article, making it more biased towards pedophiles' viewpoint, as the current version is a long-awaited compromise between the many previous ones. Protection serves this article - and let us hope that reason in editors and administrators will continue to prevail and there will be no more harm done to people's minds by the means of this article, which was once the case.

Technical stuff - when I posted this comment for the first time this morning, it got deleted. To the person who did it: please do not censor Misplaced Pages. If you have something to say - just say it and let others do the same. Take care, whoever you are. 77.253.102.172 (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That would have been me. And I take it as a personal attack and rather sickening that as someone who does not agree with the first paragraph, I am made out to be a pedophile supporter or a child abuser, and that I am acting in bad faith. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:29, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Addendum, the first version was even more accusing than this one. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Dear Martijn, I hope that if you re-read my post free of negative emotions, you'll see there is nothing personal or offensive. I made a point, which you have any right to disagree with, but perhaps there is no need to confront views contrary to yours in any oversensitive way.

The previous post was similar, but shorter, but if you insist it was accusing, perhaps you should undelete it and say specifically what sort of words you find unkind. Regards 77.253.96.201 (talk) 19:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

<quote>There is nothing wrong with the first lines, they state facts. Individuals who would like to see them deleted/changed either do not know what the so-called pedophile "movement" is all about or (more probable) belong to the group of pedophile supporters and actual child abusers trying to stuff Misplaced Pages with mind-mixing rhetorics theories in order to enforce societal changes they perceive beneficiary for themselves. We can just hope that the reason in editors and administrators will prevail and no further harm to people's mnds will be done here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.253.110.5 (talk) 11:04, 23 January 2008 (UTC) </quote>

I am one of those individuals who would like to see the first lines changed. According to you that means I am most likely a member of the group of pedophile supporters, and actual child abusers, and I am trying to stuff wikipedia with mind-mixing rhetorics theories in order to enforce societal changes I percieve beneciviary for myself. That I find highly offensive. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello once more. The discussion is becoming more and more personal, so let me just answer you to clarify certain issues. I am not nearly as interested in your sexual preferrences as I am in the contents of this article. And mind you - I have never said that you specifically are an abuser - so you have no reason to feel offended. Obviously, you advocate changes to this article(as you admit), and which happen to be most likely desired by pedophiles. This is a fact, and there is nothing offensive in facts. Perhaps revealing your motivation to do so would help solve your identification issue which you started discussing, otherwise you might continue to overreact to simple statements.

But, as I said, you shouldn't treat the above posts as any personal attack, because they are not (hope it is clear now:). If you feel you're neither a pedophile or supporter, then those words are simply not about you. Full stop.

Have a nice evening 87.205.246.26 (talk) 21:07, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The content itself is currently under discussion with the mediation committee. Apart from that, I would appreciate it if you stop making assumptions about the editors who propose certain changes. Focus on content, and not on what you believe other editors think, know, or are. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Focusing on content was my main intention. The first lines are OK - glad we returned to it:)

Bye! 87.205.170.24 (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Then I suggest you strike the lines where you make assumptions about the editors. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

No need to do that - my opinion (advocates of pedophilia do not know the facts regarding the "movement" or purposefully publish untrue information) has not changed. On the other hand, I suggest that you avoid censoring Misplaced Pages in the future. Use this place to talk/inform, not to manipulate. 87.205.172.78 (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello. I am another editor who wants to see these words removed from the article. I am not a pedophile although I have done therapy with them and sometimes the family. I think that this is a major article pertaining to sexology, and it contains words (at the start) that are right off considering neutrality.

You try and argue from harm, which is inappropriate for a factual encyclopedia. Karla Lindstrom 01:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Note that the result of this kind of practices is harm (physical, mental or both) - it's simply a fact. 87.205.172.78 (talk) 21:01, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

And where do you get the idea we do not argue from harm on wikipedia. please familiarise yourself with our policies before making inaccurate statements about said policies. We remain neutral re harm, ie child sexual abuse is harmful and so we remain neutral, we do not take a stance that it is not harmful merely because we want to promopte our own ideas on wikipedia, or for any other reason. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:03, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

For the reference of anyone new to Misplaced Pages - the above should have been meant sarcastically, but unfortunately was not. Obviously, if a subject talks about a debate over whether adult-child sex is always harmful, it is the editor's responsibility not to promote either stance (harmful vs. not harmful). It's their job to state what both stances are (without saying either one is correct) and what the arguments behind them are (without saying those arguments are valid). This as opposed to making a POV statement and then saying it is neutral. -HolokittyNX (talk) 00:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Jesus Howard Christ. First, the controversy over this is such that anyone posting needs to log in and sign their posts - otherwise they MUST NOT be taken seriously. Second, the opening lines are factually and unquestionably false (and unless you have spent a great deal of time reading pedophile boards, you are not qualified to disagree). There is a huge and extremely contentious debate in the pro-pedophile movement as to whether age-of-consent laws should be changed. Let me put this more clearly - a large number of pro-peds support abolishing the age of consent. Many, many others believe that the law should NOT change, and believe that sexual contact between adults and children WOULD be abusive. Let me say that again, in simpler terms - THE PRO-PED MOVEMENT IS STRONGLY DIVIDED ON THE ISSUE OF CHANGING THE LAW. Any statement that the movement has a single, universal (or even widely held) belief on the issue of consent is false. Period. There are two factions of the movement, where that's concerned. Practically two movements.

The issue of harm is irrelevant (in other words, stop talking about whether you think it's harmful or not - Misplaced Pages doesn't care). First, in editing the article you are not allowed to operate on any assumption as to whether its subject (the movement) is correct in its assertions or not. Any statement in the article that something is or is not abuse is POV. The closest you can get is saying that 'this party says it's abuse' and 'this party says it's not.' Period. Second, even if you were allowed to use the POV assumption that it is abusive, the entire movement doesn't support it in the first place. -HolokittyNX (talk) 04:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Your assumption is that anyone who doesn't infiltrate the pedophile "movement" is not entitled to disagree with opinions that you don't care to prove. Not serious. (But read the end of this post.) Now to the subject matter.

The first sentence - have you noticed the word "encompasses" there? It means "includes", and not "consists only and exclusively of", so your poin there is not valid - as well as the one of abuse - THOSE LINES DO NOT SAY THAT ALL PEDOPHILES ARE ABUSERS OR PREDATORS. You seem to have misunderstood the message.

You should also know that "child sexual abuse" is a legal term, so it would be unwise to avoid it as you want, just because you stick a POV tag to it.

Finally, your story of some heavy division within the pedo-society is much overblown. Sure, there are certain differences within it, as some guys prefer 12-year-olds, while others are inclined to 6-year-olds, some like boys and some like girls etc., but on the whole the policy of the "movement" is clear and IS about changing the law, because none of them guys wants to go to jail for what they enjoy. But again, the article does not say that the division you propose is nonexistent, so the point you're making is not relevant.

So, to finish off, is there any ACTUAL PROBLEM you have with the article?

(For your knowledge, I use various sources regarding pedophilia, including pedophile sites such as martijn etc. to stay up to date with the subject, so rest assured, I'm not as ignorant on the matter as you assume. Plus I happen to know several victims of child abuse - and I can recommend you to get to know what grown-up victims of so-called "child love" have to say if you want to obtain a fuller picture of the phenomenon.) Sirmix (talk) 21:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight is given to the faction that wants the law changed, and no mention is made of the internal controversy over that point. In that context, 'encompasses' might as well mean 'consists solely of,' because readers will only go away with the emotional impact of 'pedophiles want the right to sexually abuse children' and nothing else. People look at this issue with their guts and not their heads. Bad idea - even if your gut was right, you still need an objective understanding of why. And the fact that 'child sexual abuse' is a legal term (much as 'crime against nature' has been in some places) means nothing. Part of the article's subject is a debate over whether that term should be applied to all adult-child sex. NPOV means not asserting that either side is correct (which includes using that term according to one side's definition of it and not the other). The debate is to be characterized here, not reenacted. However an editor feels about that term, their feelings have no place in the article. Instead, the article should say 'the majority of pro-pedophile activists suppport changing the law to allow certain forms of sexual contact between adults and minors, contacts currently outlawed in most jurisdictions as child sexual abuse or statutory rape.' I say 'certain forms' because they all know that penetration would cause injury, and there's very little questioning of that.

You claim the article doesn't accuse of pedophiles of being criminals (true). But you then turn and say that they are all criminals ('none of them wants to go to jail for what they enjoy'). Academic articles posted on Martijn/IPCE/etc. are not debates and don't cover the disagreement over changing the AOC. And if you were as knowledgeable as you pretend, you'd know that the 'boylovers' and 'girllovers' have very little interaction at all, very few sites in common and are practically separate movements. Hardly a minor quibble. Not to mention the division over abortion (quite a few pro-peds being of the belief that a real pedophile would never allow 'kids' to be harmed by abortion). Nothing new there, of course - same old arguments. Same old rancor too.

And don't bother playing the crybaby card with victims you're not able to put right in front of me with their minds wide open for me to peer into. Whatever happened to them was probably done by people who are now too old to have anything to do with the current movement (assuming they were activists or even clinical pedophiles - not statistically likely), and has nothing to do with whether the activists are saying this or saying that. Don't get vague, talking about a 'phenomenon.' There are child molesters, and there are pedophiles, and there are pro-pedophile activists (pro-contact, anti-contact, pro-choice, pro-life, devoutly Christian, Atheist, etc.). The fact that somebody is ONE of those things doesn't mean they also fit the other two categories. You wanna come across as objective, don't bring up sensationalist junk like this. And FYI - I'm a 'victim' too. -HolokittyNX (talk) 00:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

When is the protection of this article going to be lifted? It's been protected since November. Dylan and Cole Sprouse Fan (talk) 09:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Probably once people start acting like responsible adults. Which, judging by this Talk page, will be when Hell freezes over. -- Kesh (talk) 19:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

hoax ref

N.B.: the reference for "...removing the legal protection parents have to prevent their children falling into the hands of pedophiles", which is http://www.surfingtheapocalypse.net/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?noframes;read=69831, is a hoax. There is no such person as "Atilla Killemall" (Kill-them-all, get it?), there is no such organization as "Europol's Pedophile Eradication Team", there is no such company as "PedoTrack" and there is no such device as "PedoPain". This is a good example of why we don't use just some guy's web page as a reference. Herostratus (talk) 05:34, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course those are not facts, the article linked to says it straight that the story is purely fictional. Funny or not, this link should be replaced with something more proper there. Sirmix (talk) 09:35, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

scrolling references

Without regard for the internal formatting of such, the notes/references section should be removed from the scrollable box it is currently contained within. This is broken by screenreaders and printing the article, making them unusable for first-person as well as downstream users. — pd_THOR | 20:55, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

New version of opening paragraph

As a step towards taking this article out of protection can I suggest the following for the opening paragraph of this article?

The term pro-pedophile activism or pro-paedophile activism (Commonwealth usage) refers to organisations and groups that argue for a veriety of measures including certain changes to criminal laws and cultural response to pedophilia and youth sexuality. The obverse movement is anti-pedophile activism, which aims to protect children from those whom its participants view simply as predatory pedophiles. There is no single set of goals agreed on by all pro-pedophile activists but examples are: social acceptance of adults' sexual attraction to children, social acceptance of sexual activity between adults and children and changes to institutions of concern to pedophiles, such as age of consent laws or mental illness classifications. Some pro-pedophile groups are involved in opposing vigilante groups that target anyone with a sexual attraction to children.

Obviously links will be restored if this version is adopted.The Relativist (talk) 11:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerning the opening lines (an analogy)

After watching a documentary that concerned the history of sexuality the other day, I thought I'd read a little more about them on Misplaced Pages, and after following my curiosity through a few links, I found myself at this article. I was honestly amazed at the current condition of the intro. I first assumed that it was vandalized (since it appeared to be one of the most POV things I've ever seen on Misplaced Pages), but then I saw it was protected... and I decided to read a little of the stuff on the talk page to see what's going on. No other Wiki page on a controversial subject would accept this sort of wording. Let me put this in context.

Suppose the law in the U.S. was as it was in 1970 and the "Pro-choice" article on abortion started with the opening sentences: "Pro-choice activism encompasses pro-choice organizations and activists that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response in order to allow pro-choice women and doctors to murder babies. The obverse movement is pro-life activism, which aims to protect babies from murderous women and predatory abortion doctors."

Would such an intro be acceptable on Misplaced Pages? Of course not.

Or suppose the "Pro-life" article on abortion started with: "Pro-life activism encompasses pro-life organizations and activists that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response in order to allow pro-lifers to force women to have unwanted children. The obverse movement is pro-choice activism, which aims to protect women from extreme pro-lifers, some of whom would force women to die in pregnancy."

Would such an intro be acceptable either? No, of course not.

Read the intros to both of these articles (or any on such controversial subjects). The opening sentences are just not the place to use loaded language that presumes the falsity of the position discussed in the article. Later in the intro, there certainly needs to be acknowledgement of the disagreements and the opinions of the other side. As they currently stand, the opening sentences are opinionated and needlessly inflammatory, and I hope that whatever consensus people are working on will solve these problems.

By the way, I'm not intending on doing edits myself, and I'm not going to participate in further arguments here. I'm just a disinterested third party who happened to come upon a gross POV violation, and I thought I'd offer an argument that might begin to persuade those who think the opening is acceptable. I personally agree with current social norms that say most relationships mentioned here are bad, but given that historical and cultural norms vary on this subject and even prominent intellectuals (particularly in Europe a few decades ago) seriously considered this position, the opening sentences just shouldn't immediately put anyone who supports this movement into the category of supporting child abuse and sexual predators... which is what the current intro does. 65.96.183.164 (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you familiarise yourself with wikipedia policies. Is the article neutral? No. Is the opening neutral? Not really? The best solution would be to redirect to pedophilia but as the community has rejected that we do the best we can. The beginni9ng does not mention historical context but you might like to bring some reliable sources to verify your comments. I dispute that the current opening uses "loaded language that presumes the falsity of the position discussed in the article". Thanks, SqueakBox 18:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the anon. Saying that the aim is to allow pedophiles to sexually abuse children implies (1) that everything pedophiles want to do with children is abuse (which is the majority view) and (2) that pedophiles also take that viewpoint (which is probably false). The goals should be described on the terms of the pro-pedophile movement. So for instance, we could say "...argue for legal and cultural changes to combat what they see as persecution of pedophiles" or "...argue for legal and cultural changes to legitimize sexual activity between adults and children". Mangojuice 19:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Mangojuice. There are several different options on the table at the moment in the off wiki mediation. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

While not agreeing with Mangojuice I would personally be happy for an editor with his track record to join the mediation if others agreed. I particularly don't agree that we should describe what one might call objective facts (eg child sexual,abuse) in the way that PPAs describe it (eg girllove and boylove). We do not, for instance, call black people "niggers" when writing articles about extreme right wing US groups. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind him joining in either. I'll bug Ryan to see what he thinks on his joining, and maybe Ryan can ask the other parties. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

But before I do that, Mango, how do you feel about that? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

No thanks. There are too many other issues being discussed. I would like to see any content issues being discussed productively to move to a page here, though, so editing on those points can possibly proceed. Mangojuice 04:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait, "off wiki mediation"? What is this? -- Kesh (talk) 20:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

On the mediationwikis private wiki. If you want to know more, feel free to ask the WP:MEDCOM about it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, gotcha. I was worried it was just some group of folks on an IRC server or something. Thanks for clearing that up! :) -- Kesh (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Well but it's not that simple. First of all, "sexual abuse" is a unitary term that describes adult-child sex. It's just the accepted description of that activity. We don't have avoid the use of standard terms in order to be neutral. To stand your example on its head, consider the article Genocide. It opens "Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group..." We don't, in order to be neutral, have to say "Genocide is the restructuring of demographic elements in a population; it is controversial, and some critics have contended that it has negative impacts on some of the populations involved..." or whatever. Herostratus (talk) 03:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

First, I would object in any article to using the term child sexual abuse only to refer to sex between adults and children that isn't obviously abuse. I don't disagree that that is the accepted view, it's just that it needs explaining when it's being talked about in the abstract. Second, as I mentionend above, the current wording makes the implication that not only are PPAs advocating for abuse (which is probably the majority view), but also that they are in favor of abuse, which is false because it's about the opinions of those in the movement. Just because "sexual abuse" is the accepted term doesn't mean that its use has no connotations we may want to avoid. And just because neutral terminology is a PPA technique doesn't mean that neutral terminology is biased. Mangojuice 04:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, well. It certainly is accurate, and germane, that PPAs are not advocating for what they would call or think of as abuse. Up to a point, you can respect the self-identifying terminology of the people under discussion. But only up to a point. We don't (for instance) change "Nazis advocate genocide" to "Nazis advocate demographic restructuring". That would be silly, and bending over too far to use apparently neutral terminology that in fact is tendentious. The term "sexual abuse" does, besides its purely descriptive function, have connotations - but do we really need to avoid them? Using the usual definitions of "adult" and "child", we are talking here about sex between persons 18 and older and persons 12 and under. How far do we have to bend to not leave the impression that that is inherently abusive? Herostratus (talk) 04:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

We all recognize that a phrase like "advocates legalizing and/or de-stigmatizing sexual behavior between adults and children" doesn't give the impression that such behavior is always sexual abuse, nor does it give the impression that such behavior is not always sexual abuse. It's neutral language. But what I think is being missed is that it ALSO doesn't give a 50-50 impression that maybe such behavior is abusive and maybe it's not: it just doesn't talk about that issue. Language that draws attention to whether or not such behavior is abuse and leaves us with no impression one way or the other would be inappropriate, e.g. "...advocates behavior that some see as child sexual abuse but which others see as not inherently abusive sex...", because that legitimizes the view in an incorrect comparison. But not addressing the issue is okay. I think it only seems like the sentence would be addressing the issue if we changed it because we are aware of the change. Mangojuice 06:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

See, I don't think we would / should say "Nazis advocated genocide" nor would we say "Nazis advocate demographic restructuring". We would say something along the lines of "Nazis advocated the removal of Jews from Europe through killing" or something like that. Sexual abuse isn't descriptive. An adult having sexual intercourse with a child is. And I don't know about APA or AMA clinical definitions but it might fit "abuse" in them but we should not confuse it with everyday usage of a abuse which is different. Especially in cases like this where they are advocating the legality of an action (sexual relations) but then we use a term like abuse we are not fostering neutrality. I think we should be able to settle on something like "that argue for certain changes of criminal laws and cultural response in order to allow pedophiles to have sexual relations with children, clinically defined as sexual abuse. Would that be acceptable? gren グレン 09:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

'Child sexual abuse' is not a clinical term. A clinical diagnosis always involves the identification of some sort of harm, either physical or mental, and it is at least controversial that harm always results from child sexual abuse. This term is as much a moral judgement as anything else.

Another point--the analogy with the Nazis is flawed because there is no signficant body of opinion that maintains that what the Nazis did was OK (there are some who deny that the holocaust happened but that is a different matter). In contrast there have been a number of eminent persons who have expressed agreement with aspects of the PPA platform.The Relativist (talk) 15:17, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Simply not so, actually the opposite is true, there have been more significant Nazi supporters (David Irving being the obvious example) than pedophile supporters. In the UK most people know who Irving is whereas Rind et al is much more obscure so I would strongly contest the veracity of what you say. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:26, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Gren: your wording is bad because it's cumbersome and draws attention to the abuse aspect when it isn't necessary in that sentence. And can we stop talking about Nazis? Reasoning by analogy to Nazis is basically never helpful, despite that it always seems to come up. Mangojuice 15:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Just another random user strolling through from the family guy article (amazing how you can get lost in wikipedia) who thinks this article, after reading the first line, is undoubtedly trash. I too, assumed it was vandalised... but upon searching recent changes, gave up. Is the rest of the article worth reading? (Yes I realise this probably isn't helping, other then to put another vote in the "needs a new intro" votebox). Themania (talk) 05:46, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, unless some radical changes occurred recently, other than the intro, the rest of the article should be in decent shape. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

You will find that the rest of the article is rather frank and dispassionate. So much so, in fact that it has chilled quite a few *looks around*. GrooV (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I actualy have the intention of cutting and slicing into the body of the article, essentialy to make it more compact, and more on topic. If anyone has objections against that on forehand, let me know, and I won't. If nobody does seem to mind, I'll start editing in the WP:BRD cycle. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 17:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Notability

I have tagged the article for notability, well its the movement's notability that concerns me. I am wondering whether the article should be afd'd again but hope to avoid that, but really the only way is to address the long term neutrality issues and the notability issue, a highly obscure group that in my opinion should be mentioned briefly in pedophilia though ideally mentioning the groups as NAMBLA which are more notable than the movement itself. So can we all try to address the issues of notability and neutrality and factual acuracy embodied int he tags now that the article is unlocked. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm removing the tag. Squeak, you know perfectly well that pro-pedophile activism exists and is covered in reliable sources. It is probably correct to say that there isn't a single "movement," just as it isn't correct to describe pro-life as a single movement. If you want to AfD the article, go ahead but note that although the last debate was closed as "no consensus", there was actually strong consensus to keep it if you look at the numbers. Besides, as loads of people have said, just because the subject is distasteful doesn't mean we don't cover it. Mangojuice 17:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree that distastefulness is not a reason to not cover a topic but notability is which is why I flagged it to see if other users can address the issue. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is the best approach to improving the article - it seems to follow the logic of "nominate the article enough times, hoping that at some point it will be deleted by one means or another." It has been showed more than once that this is a notable topic, so I don't think the tag is appropriate. ~ Homologeo (talk) 02:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The issues is that the article is lacking. The article is totally disputed and I am far from convinced of its notability, sure its notable enough for a mention in pedophilia but an 82 kilobyte article? Why would that be. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Anything worth covering is worth covering properly. Is there content here that seems extraneous? Mangojuice 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The sources speak for themselves. That's what makes me seriously doubt that this is anything other than a rationalisation of your (understandable, but somewhat overstated) disgust. GrooV (talk) 13:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Request minor edit

WOW what is going on here? Why is there so much controversy with this article??? anyways just wanted to say the first sentence should say "to allow adults to sexually abuse children". The source says that pedophiles want to legalize it for all adults, not just pedophiles. Just wanted tO point that out. anyways yeah I hope that you guys resolve whatever is going on, I'm just crusing along, byeeee <3 y'all ,peace out --Goon Noot (talk) 04:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a relevant observation, and seems to have already happened on the article's page. I can understand the desire to be trepedacious in regards to this article due to the high risk of being labeled a single-purpose account (as this is a popular way for people to criticize opponents here) however in cases of obvious problems like this, it would probably be okay to take the initiative and simply change pedo>adult as you suggested rather than asking for someone else to do it. In general I guess this is a way of having a mini-vote and the one making the edit 'seconding' it, so I can see the desire to be democratic and not make immediate changes yourself (by asking someone else to edit) or to act based upon other's suggestions rather than something you alone believe should be changed, as a means of consensus. Such apprehension is natural on heavily contested articles like this. In general, many edits will often be made by users who are willing to risk their accounts coming under attack of bias. However, single-purpose users who make sock puppets are just the kind of person to not value their accounts, so this atmosphere is completely contrary to what is ideal for Misplaced Pages. Tyciol (talk) 01:57, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Irritated perfectionist

There are several individuals here (one whose name could be listed in NEON) who have decided that the best way not to address the issues of this article--but to have their own way nonetheless--is to begin altering this article and making extensive arguments on this Talk Page, rather than handling the improvement of this article in "confidential mediation".

As one of the few who have been taking this mediation seriously, I AM BECOMING MORE THAN A LITTLE IRRITATED ABOUT SEEING THE USERNAMES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE MEDIATION GROUP DISCUSSING THINGS HERE AND NOT AT MedComWiki.

Or is it that some of you (one in particular) only wish to handle this IN PUBLIC because it is personal attention rather than perfection of the article that you are really interested in?

Welland R (talk) 13:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? What is MedComWiki and why should Misplaced Pages editors care about the contents of another wiki? Since when are editors not allowed to discuss articles publicly? What is confidential mediation? I have never heard of such. Could you please enlighten, thanks. Herostratus (talk) 19:40, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The MedComWiki is the private wiki that is used by the Mediation Commitee. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

How are other people supposed to contribute in this environment? Changes are rebuffed thanks to discussion off-wiki that is closed and not accessible. I don't want to damage the mediation, but someone needs to summarize those discussions here and open things back up so things can proceed here. As an emergency measure to stop a damaging conflict, it's one thing, but this has been going on for months now. Mangojuice 20:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I think there is very good progress there, and we are close to coming to an agreement. I'll ask Ryan as our mediator to give some sort of progress report. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

We had problems with people trolling the mediation we tried here on site so we went off site, I would be very happy to welcome Herostratus, Mangojuice and any other wikipedians with a track record to engage there, otherwise I am sympathetic to the points these 2 users make. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I for one have no interest in joining a closed discussion. I'd like to see what has been said, but it's time for content discussions to happen on Misplaced Pages where they belong. Mangojuice 20:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I've largely stayed out of the quagmire that is this article, but I must say: How is a private body, deliberating in secret, expecting the community to treat whatever agreement they bring to this article? Am I to infer from the editors Squeak named that only those in broad agreement with him are welcome to participate? An off-wiki agreement that doesn't include all interested parties isn't worth the electrons it's written with. I amplify Mangojuice's sentiments when I say that this is supposed to be a collaborative wiki where decisions happen publicly by consensus. The deliberations of a Star Chamber can't reasonably be expected to bind any editor, much less one not on the guest list. --SSBohio 03:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Well... it is a mediation after all. I'm sure that all opinions are represented, because WP:MED requires all involved parties to agree to participate. I don't know how much the mediation is accomplishing, but what it can accomplish has got to be pretty limited in this case. This is a controversial topic and editing about it is always going to be at least a bit contentious. Mangojuice 20:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, editors can suit themselves, but, judging from the past, we all know what will happen to this article if another significant edit war breaks out. The reason for the "private" discussion on the MedComWiki is so that editors involved in several prior major disagreements can come to some kind of consensus. The hope is that this process will yield some agreement on what this article, or at least its intro, should look like. Once some differences are settled, I'm sure the editing here will become somewhat easier and definitely more open. ~ Homologeo (talk) 03:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

New version/old version

Now that the article introduction has changed (although it is not highly advisable from a mediation standpoint, it may have been required for POV policy reasons), I will provide a link to the old version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Pro-pedophile_activism&oldid=188118715

I have done some work on improving the flow and NPOV of the opening sentences, after Barry Jameson removed the obvious violations. GrooV (talk) 18:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hrrm. I think the old version had some things to recommend it. Removal of the reference to anti-pedophile activism (which is not actually parallel) is good, though. While "sexually abuse children", though technically accurate, is a bit of over the top, "sexual activity between adults and children" is surely not the most accurate description, either (given lack of ability to consent and so forth), I have changed this to "perform sex acts on children" which is hopefully a reasonable middle ground. Herostratus (talk) 20:40, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Perform sexual acts on children sounds good to me. Linking to the CSA article, though, is vital. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary, I think the original--sexual activity between adults and children--is more accurate and more neutral. I don't see that it necessarily implies consent. Additionally, PPAs would also advocate acceptance of children performing sex acts on adults. The Relativist (talk) 10:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"sexual activity between adults and children" - this cannot be used because "between" implies mutuality, and that does not exist in this situation. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 17:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

But that is exactly what is disputed by the PPAs. They think it can be mutual. Perhaps we need to say that acceptance is sought for what is commonly regarded as child sexual abuse but which the PPAs regard as valid sexual relationships between adults and children.The Relativist (talk) 21:00, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

We can say that PPAs believe child sexual abuse is not always abusive or something along these lines. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:23, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

"between" doesn't imply mutuality in "sexual activity between adults and children" anymore than it does in "the love between a parent and their child" or "the relationship between a student and their teacher."

Well, IMO, The Herostratus version is definitely POV (refers to something using the subjectivity of one side of the debate which it is discussing) and the Relativist/Jameson version is probably neutral. Anyway, I edited it for compromise, so hopefully none of you can argue against it. GrooV (talk) 03:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, no, I don't think so. Couple points: It's entirely possible to have terminology that is worded so as to appear neutral but isn't. For instance, you could say that murder is "life cessation activity involving two or more participants". That sounds more neutral than saying (say) it's "a killing of a victim by a perpetrator", but is it really more accurate and neutral? I would say it is not neutral but basically apologistic for murder. Same with the terminology you have proposed.

Second point is, wait a second. "Sex acts performed by adults on children" is the compromise terminology. Using the current definition of child sexual abuse, it actually would be technically accurate to say "sexually abuse children" as it did before. However, as a compromise, this has been watered down. Be reasonable. Herostratus (talk) 04:17, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

"Sexual activity between adults and children" is a much better wording. It's more succinct, and despite Squeak's objection above, it doesn't imply that the act is a mutual act, it is inclusive of both mutual and one-sided activity. "Performed by adults on children" is unnecessarily specific, as if we're trying to make clear the activists don't care about acts performed by children on adults. There is no POV problem in saying "sexual activity between adults and children" and I don't understand why some people here seem to believe that every time the subject is mentioned in every sentence, we must "balance" it by mentioning the other point of view. That's just going to lead to confusing, badly written prose. And Herostratus, please refrain from equating perfectly reasonable prose with being apologistic for murder, that isn't going to help the level of discourse here. Mangojuice 05:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Herostratus that the earlier version was much more accurate, "sexually abuse children". I recommend returning to that version, or using the compromise version "Sex acts performed by adults on children". The words "with" or "between" do imply a form of mutual activity involving consent and understanding that is impossible when one is an adult and the other is a child. The fact that PPA's want to convince others that such consent is possible, does not make it so. Here is a Google Books link to a reference that illustrates this point well - check out pages 94-95:

• Critical Issues in Child Sexual Abuse: Historical, Legal, and Psychological Perpectives.

The word child includes even toddlers and very young school children. As strange as it may sound to us, there are people who impose sexual acts on very young children, and who attempt to "normalize" the idea in various ways. As Herostratus pointed out, to use terminology in the same way that PPA's would use is it, is not neutral, it's a fringe POV. We need to state the mainstream view, using mainstream terminology; as an add-on it could be shown the way in which a pro-pedohila activist might word the statement, if a source for that is available; but Misplaced Pages should not present the concept from (to borrow a term from fiction article MoS) an "in-universe" perspective. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

One general point and one specific one.

First, what sort of an article should we expect on 'pro-pedophile activism'? I mean should it treat the movement as some sort of deviant or criminal tendency, in the way that we might write about Nazism? (Surely it wouldn't be POV to describe the Nazis as criminals.) Or should we instead treat it as being, although obviously not mainstream, a movement whose partcipants might have something valid to contribute to social debate? The answer has to be the latter. There have just been too many important and distinguished people who have advocated aspects of the PPA platform to suppose otherwise (Brongersma, Sandfort, Bernard, Tatchel, Paglia to name but a few). This point must affect terminology and so the PPA views must not be ruled out of court by the use of terms such as 'child sexual abuse' unless this is balanced by pointing out that they represent only the mainstream view.

The more specific point: as it stands the opening paragraph still talks of sex acts performed on children but as more than one of us has pointed out, PPAs are just as concerned about what children do to adults.The Relativist (talk) 11:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

We don't describe Nazis as criminals; we just describe what they did and let the reader draw his own conclusions. But neither do we bend over backwards to be "fair" by (for instance) describing genocide as "demographic realignment" or whatever. However, the idea that PPAs are anything but an extreme fringe is not borne out by the facts. Take a survey of any random sector of the populace and you will see what I mean.

Again: I personally will concede that "sexually abuse children", while technically accurate, maybe sounds too inflammatory given that people might take the common rather than technical meaning of the term "abuse". Therefore I am willing to countenance compromise terminology. Can you not do the same.

Finally, your last point, which has been brought up more than once: the idea that children are longing to have sex with adults if only freed from social/legal restraints. That is just silly. Herostratus (talk) 14:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Let me propose a new alternate wording. The current sentence is "Some also call for ... social acceptance of adults' performing sex acts on children (widely considered to be child sexual abuse by medical, social and legal definitions)." If you look at this as a whole, what we're saying is that PPAs disagree that sexual behavior between adults and children is inherently "child sexual abuse", and that they argue to change that. But we're saying it in a really burdensome way and throwing in an implication that is undesirable in describing only adult-on-child acts. How about this: "Some also argue for ... change of the widely accepted position that sex between adults and children is inherently child sexual abuse, ..." or something like that? We are making a special effort to make that widely accepted position clear while describing what PPAs advocate for, and this integrates that much better, without it sounding like we're trying to apologize for even talking about this subject. Mangojuice 14:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that a lot of our users are biased quite heavily against any idea of the intergenerational sex with children, and may interpret the policy of neutrality in different ways. I think that Herostratus is arguing for the article to "agree" with majority viewpoints in order to stay neutral. I (and the NPOV document) argue that we do not need this populist interpretation (especially on tricky sexological articles). NPOV is nonpartisan, not centrist partisan.

Also, describing "life cessation activity involving two or more participants" as a "neutral" description of murder is silly, as the activity clearly involves the intent of one person to predate and kill the other. Sex with children is fundamentally different, and as any experienced debater will know, the arguments against it apply to subjective interpretations of psychological manipulation, not particularly objective, fact based judgements of malicious intent and obvious coercion. Whilst we know that murder is coercive and one sided because it is defined as such, calling all adult-child sex "abuse" or "coercion" is a judgement, however much we may abhor it.

Jack is also arguing redundantly, as psychiatry does not have a monopoly over the sciences let alone "factual" encyclopedic knowledge. I think that Jack is pushing what is clearly a psychatry agenda here.

I am supporting the versions by Barry, Relativist and GroomingVictim. Karla Lindstrom 15:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

What exactly are you saying? Neutrality is not about legitimising the PPA viewpoint any more than racism is about legitimising the racist viewpoint. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk about missing her point (or deliberately straw-manning it). Anyway, given that recent editors' comments show about 6:4 (non)consensus towards the group of descriptions suggested above, the least you can do is stick to a compromise version. I swear, on no other subject would we have this kind of POV problem, i.e. editors claiming to "neutralise" an articles' wording by forcing into it the emotional biases of what we all know but most certainly do not need to say, ALL THE MORE because the movement we are discussing maintains the delusion that these contacts are not onesided in some way. GrooV (talk) 17:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

For simply stylistic reasons, I would recommend that we use the following: "sexual activity between adults and children," "sexual acts between adults and children," "sex acts between adults and children," or "adult-child sexual activity." I don't think these phrases relay anything definitive about control or consent, but they are definitely the least awkward-sounding set-ups, given the context. However, I don't see a point in getting into a dispute over such semantics, especially when they don't seem to be crucial to the content or overall look of the article. Thus, I would like to inquire of the parties currently in disagreement over this issue if there is any formation of this particular phrase, that has been expressed or can be proposed, that they think would work as a fair compromise for both sides. ~ Homologeo (talk) 16:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

"Adults' sexual activity with children", as it circles out the behaviour of the adult without unduly characterising the relationship, when a debate involving that characterisation is being discussed. I think someone has already reverted this copy to the biased one, but I doubt that will go far, consensus wise. On the other hand, it has been proven again and again that you don't need consensus to make a POV edit on these articles. Christ, you can even get them deleted! GrooV (talk) 17:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

"With" doesn't imply consent, considering it's usually prepositional to inanimate objects. I support its use here.

Jack-A-Roe's latest version was rightly reverted. The prevailing "medical" view is that adult-child sex is always abusive, not that it's always harmful (the latter being an untenable belief). The addition of a reference to child sexual abuse in the first sentence was unnecessary: activities treated as "pro-paedophile activism" are defined as such by their relation to paedophilia, including CSA-related activism. AnotherSolipsist (talk) 14:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Generally, I like the new intro. I would use 're-examine' rather than 'reform' in the second sentence, since 'reform' has a positive connotation and 're-examine' is more neutral. Also, I would use 'sexual activitiy between adults and children.' 'Between' is quite neutral re: consent. It's also used in such contexts as 'violence between Sunnis and Shia.' Ditto for 'with' - e.g. 'Sunnis fighting with Shia.' But the current description of "adults' sexual contact with children" seems to refer to actual contacts going on right now. Generally there isn't enough information about what goes on right now (in real life) between adults and kids for the PPAs to approve or disapprove of most of it. They're usually talking about hypothetical contacts between hypothetical people. -HolokittyNX (talk) 05:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I'm in support of the edits HolokittyNX proposed above. ~ Homologeo (talk) 10:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

again

Let's see if we can make some headway here.

The term "child sexual abuse" and the terminology "...sexually abuse children" in the article. OK, this is the technically correct terminology. You can't think of "abuse" in this case as necessarily meaning the same as the normal dictionary meaning of abuse.

For an analogy, take O.J. Simpson. Now, Simpson was found "not guilty" by his jury. That doesn't mean he didn't do it; everyone knows that he did. It just means that, in the technical legal sense, the state did not prove its case. "Not guilty" in this case doesn't mean "free of guilt" or how we would use "not guilty" in normal conversation (e.g., "I am not guilty of eating that last porkchop" or whatever). But we still say "Simpson was found not guilty" because that, technically, is the correct term for the jury's finding.

OK so far? Can I get an amen on that?

Now, when an adult (18 or older) has sex with a child (basically, someone 12 or under), the correct technical term for that is "child sexual abuse". Don't focus on the word "abuse", just on the (technically correct) total term. If one wants to, one can take the word "abuse" as meaning simply "a word that is part of the term used for when an adult has sex with a child" and not as meaning "abuse" in the normal dictionary sense.

Now, the idea was bruited about recently that "adult-child sex" should be used instead of "child sexual abuse" for the term to describe when an adult has sex with a child. But this was seen as a non-standard neologism, and we are back to using the generally-agreed-upon term, which is "child sexual abuse".

Still with me?

****HOWEVER****

Because the word "abuse" might be taken by laymen, on first glance, to mean the dictionary sense, and that this could be seen as inflammatory, I gallantly agreed that it might be OK to substitute a more neutral-sounding term as a compromise, that being the purely descriptive "perform sex acts on children".

BUT NOOOOOOOOOOO.

Nobody wanted to compromise, they just want to use their own non-standard neologism and that's that. So now we are back to square one. Nobody wants to compromise, we will go back to the original (technically correct) terminology. Hope y'all are happy. Herostratus (talk) 01:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

My take is that right now adult-child sex is called child sexual abuse. PPAs want to change this. But how could we begin to explain what PPAs want to change without mentioning that it is CSA and attitudes to CSA that PPAs want to change, hence we must give prominence to this term in order to explain the PPAs goals to our readers. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that nobody wanted to find a working compromise. There was a healthy discussion taking place. There's no reason to go back to the POV-laden terminology that you reinserted, especially when we all know this will lead to ever more controversy and bickering. Thus, I'm changing the text to your proposed phrase - "adults performing sex acts on children." This may be only a part of what PPAs argue for and is awkward as heck, but it's at least less contentious than the current wording touting PPAs wanting to sexually abuse children. ~ Homologeo (talk) 05:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The key compromise was to accept a mention of the standard view that the activity is 'child sexual abuse' alongside the PPA's view. Now we are back with 'adults performing sex acts on children' which is just too narrow. Herostratus says that the idea that children are longing to have sex with adults if only freed from social/legal restraints is just silly--but nobody's suggesting that; he's attacking a straw man (though the idea wouldn't be so implausible if one substituted 'adolescents' for 'children'). Anyway this is beside the point. Whatever children are or are not longing for, a proper examination of PPA literature will show that PPAs are just as concerned with activities in which children themselves take a more active role. Again, what is wrong with 'adult-child sex'? It's not even really a neologism as it's a readily understandable combination of familar words.The Relativist (talk) 09:26, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

To say PPAs want a socially- and legally-admissable "child sexual abuse" is paradoxical, because such a thing would obviously not be known as "child sexual abuse." And I agree with Homologeo: "Adults' performing sex acts on children" is awkward and over-exclusive while having no clear benefit over "sexual activity between adults and children." The complaints against "between" and "with" have already been addressed, without response. It's notable that these prepositions have been used to describe adult-child sex in POV tracts against "child sexual abuse." Take this congressional resolution declaring that "sexual relations between children and adults" are nothing but "abusive, destructive, exploitive, reprehensible, and punishable by law," or David Finkelhor's noted ethical condemnation of adult-child sex, What's Wrong With Sex Between Adults and Children? AnotherSolipsist (talk) 18:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

CatherineNX's point above on "adults' sexual contact with children" applies to the CSA version as well: PPAs who advocate acceptance of adult-child sex, advocate acceptance of "hypothetical contacts between hypothetical people." They, generally speaking, do not advocate the acceptance of activity which is legally or socially defined as "child sexual abuse." AnotherSolipsist (talk) 03:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Both of Herostratus's versions are POV. Herostratus uses the term "technically correct" to describe the term "abuse". Hang on. The law and medicine are not necessarily technical, neutral or correct. Neutrality can be seen in words. These words should be free of judgements such as something being abusive, or as one of the versions implies, being abusive, despite being legalised. By the way I am not, and have never been an advocate of Pro-Pedophile activism. Lambton /_C 00:41, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I intend to revert to "adults' sexual activity with children" tomorrow, given the general support shown for this change and the unwillingness of its detractors to discuss their objections. AnotherSolipsist (talk) 23:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no unwillingness to discuss, it's just that it's already been said. I explained my objections in the prior section above at time stamp 06:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC), and I included a reference link to illustrate my comment. Herostratus and SqueakBox have also entered comments. The version you suggest is contrary to NPOV and does not have consensus. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I think sometimes descriptions can look biased when they're really not. Most people in our society are pretty negative about "adults' sexual activity with children", so negative in fact that they feel that it must always be described in negative terms (e.g. 'child sexual abuse'). Then when someone comes along and describes it non-negatively--but not necessarily positively--as "adults' sexual activity with children" it seems to them jarring and looks almost like a term of approval. But it is not. It is a thoroughly neutral description and therefore NPOV.77.96.247.15 (talk) 22:16, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! Last post was by me.The Relativist (talk) 22:19, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with your definition of neutral. Neutral isn't scientifically neutral, if most people are calling it child sexual abuse, which I think we all agree they are, then that is what we should call it too, and then point out that PPAs want to change this, which they do. Indeed the fact that PPAs want to call CSA ACS defines it as a non-neutral term. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:23, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Not for the first time, you are stumbling over your logic.

You raise the issue of "scientific neutrality", without defining this mysterious and unheard of protocol. The CSA description may be scientifically consensual (although this can be contested), but it is most certainly not neutral. Remember, consensual does not necessarily equal neutral, as neutrality is objective, not a fluid, subjective, populist "position" or "value system". But this is totally irrelevant anyway. Since when did science define all that we see in Misplaced Pages? Since when was science the wiki-religion?

The most twisted of your points comes right at the end. If it is to be taken at face value, it would indeed be true that any advocacy group could discredit and re-designate the neutrality or partiality of any phrase, by simply adopting or declining to use that phrase. Neutrality is inherent, it has not, will not and can not logically work in the way that you propose. GrooV (talk) 03:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Lacking logic? Twisted? Come back when you are feeling better and we can talk but not while you are so free with the rather silly insult which, of course, will not allow you dictate whatever point of view you are defending. Thanks, SqueakBox 04:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Once again, an illogical response. You needn't sidestep my argument by claiming incivility, as my argument was fully reasoned out.

Logic (uncountable): A method of human thought that involves thinking in a linear, step-by-step manner about how a problem can be solved. Logic is the basis of many principles including the scientific method.

Twist (as verbs): To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.

Do you have a rebuttal to either of my posts? GrooV (talk) 04:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know what logic is, I also knoww hat twisting something is. I think you need to refute my argument and not the other way around and by focussing ont he editor nopt the discussion you are not doing a brilliant job so far. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You are refuting my argument? The only argument you are making is the argument for emoticons ;) GrooV (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Newgon, etc.

CLogo and AgeTaboo were removed with misapplied justifications. External links don't need to meet the standards of WP:RS: They may be, and usually are, self-published by an unnotable figure. "Linking to a forum on the first page" also clearly doesn't violate the letter or spirit of WP:EL.

WP:RS would rule out the use of newgon.com/accounts.php as a source for the claim that some children involved in ACS later view their interactions in a positive light. However, the reliability of sourcing the fact that Newgon promotes such a claim with it is unquestionable, and that's what we're using it for (though less specifically). This use is in line with WP:RS, particularly WP:RS#Extremist sources.

And Herostratus, reasoning that a link should be removed because it's "inappropriate" is circular. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 19:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not circular, it's just not fully explained. IMO we should be linking only to official web pages of pro-pedophile activist groups. We should not be linking to pro-pedophile websites that aren't the official web pages of activist groups: there are too many of these, and WP is not a link repository. We also should be linking to pages that attempt to summarize the pro/anti pedophile debate or offer their own perspectives on it, because that's what the purpose of THIS article is, and even if we're having a hard time, we are at least all trying to make this article present the situation neutrally. Such links are superfluous. I haven't checked out the links (I'd rather not, from work) but it seems like Clogo is the only link that might be appropriate. Mangojuice 21:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I totally disagree with having these links in the article. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Mangojuice, SqueakBox, and Herostratus that those links do not belong in the article. Regarding Clogo, although it has a pro-pedohile activist pamphlet on the site, it's mostly archives of forum posts, including a section with drawings of naked children and a section or two with child pornography stories. If the pamphlet is to be referenced, it should be linked directly to the PDF file and not through their main page. (Also, they state that their website is going offline as of May 2008.) --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:36, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

If a website contains prohibited material, Misplaced Pages must not link to it. On the other hand, you stated that you removed the links because they were forums; a view of the front pages of each website proved that to be untrue. Barry Jameson (talk) 22:09, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't want to post the direct links here. If you want to verify the prohibited material, look at their "Archives Overview" and click on "Naked Young Girl Drawings" and "female childlove". That website should not be linked from Misplaced Pages. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not asking you to provide evidence or "links", nor do I wish to verify your claim. I'm asking you to provide a genuine explanation for your edits in the future, rather than make false claims; in this instance, you claimed that websites are forums when they are not. Barry Jameson (talk) 23:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's have a bit of WP:AGF and WP:CIVIL please. If you won't view the websites, what makes you think they are not forums? One of them is mainly an archive of forum posts, including child pornography stories and drawings. The other one is a list of "accounts", ie, stories, submitted by readers and posted on the website, that's a type of forum. And, on the front page of that same website is a link to an active forum section. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Links for vereniging MARTIJN, and NAMBLA might be appropriate though. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Those are worth referencing, but they don't need external links because they have separate Misplaced Pages articles. Per WP:EL, it is advised to minimize external links, so it's preferable to wikilink to their articles. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

That's true.... but on the other hand, if we're going to have any external links at all, those are the kinds of external links we should have. So either we should remove the entire external link section, or we should include those links. Mangojuice 22:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

That's fine with me, I recommend we delete the external links section. You are welcome to do so if you agree. Thanks. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 22:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer to get NAMBLA and vereniging MARTIJN in the EL. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 22:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

There is no reason to delete the entire external links section. Barry Jameson (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

They are all valid sources, if used appropriately. A source cannot be intrinsically inappropriate. Misplaced Pages is not censored. GrooV (talk) 23:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Those links don't belong. I'm not reverting at this time. If the links remain, I suggest that we file an RFC and invite wider participation from the Misplaced Pages community to form a consensus on this point. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 23:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Your objections have consisted of a tone of moral disgust and mischaracterisations that are proven wrong by simply clicking on the links. GrooV (talk) 23:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

• You're welcome to your opinion. Some others have not been willing to click the links. Whoever does click them, can make their own determination.
• I noticed you did not reply to my suggestion of an RFC to bring in more editors. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

External links section removed

Following the above discussion, I have removed the entire external links section. I'm not sure what links we might want to have, but all the ones that were there are inappropriate as I have discovered now that I've had a chance to look at them. Let me go through one by one.

• Debate Guide - "Arguments and counter arguments for the sexual emancipation of minors and minor attracted adults"
• Paedophilia - The Radical Case - Book by Tom O'Carroll
• "Boylove: Semantically Correct?" - An article critical of Pro-pedophile activism

These three are basically websites with no special authority or importance that offer their own perspectives on the PPA agenda and issues. That is the purpose of THIS article, and in its ideal state this article would do better than any such page, so it is inappropriate to link to them. Furthermore, it's not appropriate to link to activist pages that merely advance the arguments here; see Pro-life for instance -- the only links there are to websites of activist organizations, an important distinction.

• Age Taboo - "The place for young guys who like younger guys"

This is not related to pedophile activism except tangentially. This is, rather, a website of a project devoted to being a place that people with certain predelictions can go for information and support. They don't seem to have any agenda beyond offering their own website.

• Clogo - A series of pro activist projects

This is possibly appropriate; it is the website of a pro-pedophile activist. However, there's nothing that leads me to believe this activist has had any impact on anything or is remotely visible to others: in other words, this may well just be an individual website with pro-pedophile views rather than an actual activist group. Furthermore, the website says it will be going down permanently in May, so I don't see much point in linking to it for just a couple of months.

• Corporate Sex Offenders - A campaign against online services that tolerate Pro-pedophile activism

This is an anti-pedophile activist website. This page isn't about anti-pedophile activism. The activism involved isn't even a reflection specifically on PPA, but rather on a separate issues.

In a subject as sensitive as this we need to be very conservative about the external links we include. None of these are clearly correct to link to. Thus I've removed them all. Mangojuice 03:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for doing the work of checking out and summarizing those. I concur with your comments and your decision to remove the link section. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Um-kay. I don't see where we neglect equivalent organisations in the EL of Child Sexual Abuse, indeed, there are quite a few. But if we want links to sites with a clear organisational/collaborative structure and non-blog or forum like structure, may I suggest the following sites that I have reviewed:

• NAMBLA (grassroots org)
• MARTIJN (grassroots org)
• Newgon.com (cyber activist org, not dissimilar to Perverted-Justice's recent ventures)
• Boylover.net (peer support org)
• PNVD (political party which supports PPA) GrooV (talk) 00:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I also support the idea of keeping O'Carroll's book, as it is a particularly good source from within the movement. GrooV (talk) 00:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the external links section in Child sexual abuse has recently been extensively reduced, per discussion on the talk page at Talk:Child sexual abuse#Further reading and EL and Talk:Child sexual abuse#Literature and Organization Restoration. As of this time stamp, the article has only one external link, to the DMOZ directory, plus two external link references to scientific studies. Take a look. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:58, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with GroomingVictim. Mangojuice, how can you expect even an ideal version of this article to cover all of the information in The Radical Case, or on Newgon, or CLogo? We're working with size restrictions. External links are usually included because they provide a level of detail that we can't hope to match. --AnotherSolipsist (talk) 01:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:EL, any links we include here ought to be either (1) neutral information sources that go into more depth about pro-pedophile activism than we can, or (2) links to organizations we are discussing in the article. "The Radical Case" for instance, is not remotely unbiased for one thing, and for another, it is not about pro-pedophile activism but rather about pedophilia itself and how it should or shouldn't be viewed which is not the topic of this article. Mangojuice 06:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

In fact, that policy allows for POV, as long as it balances with that documented in-article. Points 4 and 4 in what should be linked and links to consider can actually be used as direct refutations of your logic, especially where a lack of neutrally phrased sources exists. It is therefore proper for an EL to be demonstrative. I support the section forwarded by GV. digitalemotion 06:51, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Put back again

Unless I am mistaken, I saw no consensus to remove it in the first place. If there are any more voices of dissent, maybe we should discuss removing it again.

I included the fascinating article by Eichenwald in our latest EL. digitalemotion 07:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

What is happening?

Are people not editing this article, in fear that they would get banned??? And yes, of course we should have links to pedophile websites. No, Gwen! (talk) 13:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

They're probably still having that big secret mediation thing. (See a few sections up.) Mangojuice 14:59, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I haven't been near mediation since the complaints from you and Ssbohio, ie just after the article got unlocked and people changed the disputed opening. Perhaps people have no issues with the article as it currently stands, that is the case with the great majority of articles, or perhaps we are all just exhausted, i know after the endless adult-child sex debates that I am. Thanks, SqueakBox 15:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, the intro was at the center of the controversy, and maybe editors are now more or less happy with things as they are. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, no - not much going on with the mediation lately. Besides, the recent compromise on the intro proposed and accepted within this article alleviated some of the tension faced by editors within the mediation. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I certainly hope people are not shying away from editing out of fear of getting banned. That would not bode well for the project. As for links to pro-pedophile websites, they're appropriate, as long as they contain information referenced within the text or elaborate on the topics involved with this article. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope. Editors aren't not-editing due to fear of being banned. They're not editing due to actually being banned! Well, I am not editing for "fear" of being banned. (Actually, more like fear of continued personal attacks and harassment, because I am careful not to personally attack and careful not to violate policy knowingly or grossly, so banning me would be difficult to legitimize.) Anyway, that's about all there is to that at the time. One of these days the reactionary, POV-pushing, conspiracy-theorizing, anti-anything-we-don't-like, I-can-harass-you-but-you-can't-point-out-when-I-do-it, over-hyphenation-causing -ness will subside.

We all can only hope. • VigilancePrime • • • 01:13 (UTC) 4 Mar '08

This movement should be banned

The ideologues (who use similar arguments to sex offenders, therefore showing their taxonomic similarity) should also be taken into custody and morally rehabilitated.

And we should take the first step in this process to protect public health by banning these articles in the moral and ideological interest of minors who would otherwise be abusively, sexually propagandised by these articles.

If it must remain, this article should aim to convey the hideous and uncensored horrors that child rape advocates are campaigning for. Rachel Cragg (talk) 11:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

That would be a gross violation of WP:NPOV. We don't need to condemn the movement through words; their positions and actions are repugnant enough to do the job for us. Mangojuice 14:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Mangojuice, though we must take care not to have the articles praising the movement either. Whether the movement should be banned or not is a job for politicians not for us a s editors here. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Ditto - we're an encyclopedia, not an advocacy group or a political entity. Neutrality is key. ~ Homologeo (talk) 06:28, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I SAID that I do not want this article to be censored (if it were to exist). Part of this would be outlining that a lot of people want advocacy of crimes such as pedophilia to be outlawed and heavily punished by state structure. Rachel Cragg (talk) 13:59, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is strictly true simply because these things unquestionably already happen. You might argue that some people want the death penalty or castration for pedophiles, and that in many places people want better enforcement of the law, more done to prevent sex tourist pedophiles etc but any additions must anyway be verifiable through reliable sourcing. And of course, if you can find sources that the movement should be banned that would be worthy of inclusion. Happy editing. Thanks, SqueakBox 14:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Rachel, this is not a page for discussing Pro-pedophile activism in general. This is a page for discussing the Misplaced Pages article on pro-pedophile activism. The article does discuss that the movement faces very strong opposition. Do you have any reliable sources we could use to expand that coverage? Mangojuice 17:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Is pedophilia a crime?

The above sounds a lot like the Nazi (and others) paradigm of burning any book we don't like and sending people we don't like to death camps. Those statements above are scary...

"banning these articles in the moral and ideological interest"?

I have to agree with Mango and Squeak (and all NPOV in general!) in that this article is not the place where one should "aim to convey the hideous and uncensored horrors". That's the same thing those that you oppose seek to do in the other direction. We're neutral. We must stay that way.

• VigilancePrime • • • 21:08 (UTC) 1 Mar '08

You have stated that people you label as ideologues should be arrested (this is what 'taken into custody' means) and 'morally rehabilitated'. There is no article on moral rehabilitation so it may be valuable to create one if such a concept does in fact popularly exist. Considering how morality, unless you do brainwashing/trauma, is generally found voluntarilty, the way to change people's moral views would be to speak with them. It would seem to me that people would be more receptive to conversations if their freedom is not taken from them due to engaging in free speech.

I am unfamiliar with the expression taxonomic similarity, has this been commonly used or recently constructed? There is no evidence that sex offenders argue in any uniform way, or that they argue against certain things (many take responsibility for actions and admit they made a mistake that does not deserve leniancy). As such, I do not believe comparing the people you call ideologues to this legal group would be a consistant comparison, as there is nothing specific to compare it to.

Banning articles is not the best precident. We are already at the point in society where images are illegal, to have words become illegal would be another loss in media, all leading to the eventual end that this stems from: thoughtcrime. My personal reaction in response to Orwell's book was that instituting thoughtcrimes does not lead to an ideal society, and instigates an emotional reaction of fear when I see people engaging in thoughtcriminalization activism (that would be an interesting article, I should request someone make it some time). Having articles on an encyclopedia does not risk propogandizing anyone (individual or otherwise) if it maintains NPOV. So long as articles are defended against people who would obscure the truth with malice with the intent of manipulating others, as well as correcting those with false perceptions, the articles remain truthy and it is impossible for truth to be propoganda. In particular, maintaining articles on independant thinking (involving things like reading critically and not believing everything you read is the truth, no matter how trusworthy the source) would help secure readers against the few articles they might happen across which are (hopefully only temporarily) compromized by distorted inaccuracies.

The article is called pedophile activism, so advocates relevant to the discussion would be those advocating the psychological state which is pedophilia (a sexual preference for prepubescents)'. Calling it 'child rape advocates' is not accurate. While it is probable that there are advocates of rape who support this movement for insincere purposes, using statements like this risks generalizing all supporters as supporters of rape, which does not work out using logical causality. This would be as much a mistake as presuming anyone who does not condemn pedophilia must support it. There are some who view thoughts and those who have them neutrally, even in the cases where they are flawed or even if they lead to patholog, in response to not being judgmental of that person's sincerity to think accurately, as many people do not even though they are not aware of it. Furthermore, it is good to hold in mind the possibility that you are not actually hearing their opinion properly due to semantic misunderstandings, and to discuss with them further as to clarify any potential misunderstandings through use of different terms which are less ambiguous in their meanings and inferences. Tyciol (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR COMMENT

Template:RFCsoc

Which is the best wording? "Some pro-pedophile activists call for social acceptance of... (1) ...sexual activity involving children and adults." or (2) ...sexual abuse of children by adults." or (3) ...adults performing sex acts on children." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 06:45, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Of the three, I prefer (1). I think (3) is incomplete, as adults do encourage or force children to perform sexual acts on them--fellatio, for instance. I think "between children and adults" works just as well as (1), and sounds better to me. -Jmh123 (talk) 07:07, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I concur that "sexual activity between children and adults" would work effectively as well. However, I still prefer the first option as it is phrased above. ~ Homologeo (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Best is #1. #2 seems self-contradictory and passes judgement (however rightly) and #3 is, as another wikipedian noted, incomplete. • VigilancePrime • • • 16:03 (UTC) 4 Mar '08

Isn't this the point of the closed door discussions on the Mediation Wiki? 75.0.228.157 (talk) 09:16, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, and I don't know if anyone knows what is going on with that and when, if ever, a decision will be reached. It's certainly been a long time, if it is even active, In the meantime, life continues. Herostratus (talk) 03:10, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Although there technically is still a mediation process in progress, it hasn't been very active lately. Besides, the tension has been eased significantly since the unprotection of this article and the restructuring of the intro. Thus, it's likely that more editors than before are now relatively content with the current situation. Howbeit, even if the mediation is to continue and is to tackle new issues, there's ample reason for users to continue discussing constructive changes on the Talk Page. Only a handful of editors are involved in the mediation, but everyone deserves an opportunity to voice his or her concerns, and to recommend how this article can be improved. This is why it's good that people are discussing their proposals for article improvement out in the open, and are seeking to gather community feedback on possible changes. ~ Homologeo (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I largely echo the opinions of VigilancePrime and Jmh123. #1 is the most neutrally worded and the least awkward phrase, and thus this is what I would recommend. #2 doesn't make sense, seeing as it's doubtful that any pro-pedophile activist will say that he or she promotes "sexual abuse of children by adults." One of the main goals of the PPA movement is to reconsider what actually constitutes child sexual abuse, so its advocates definitely do not view adult-child sexual activity as CSA, and would likely not condone whatever they personally consider to be CSA. All in all, it seems very POV and quite dishonest for the article to utilize the second option. Finally, #3 is indeed incomplete, because many PPAs do argue for adult-child equality in sexual relationships, and do call for acceptance of ACS in both directions (meaning adults performing sex acts on children, and vice versa). Besides, the last option is somewhat awkwardly phrased. ~ Homologeo (talk) 11:58, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. #1 is the only NPOV option. #2 implies that it is agreed upon that all sexual activity involving children must be abuse, which pro-pedophile activists probably wouldn't agree with. #3 implies that all sexual activity between adults and children are purely passive on the children's part, which isn't necessarily true. Ketsuekigata (talk) 22:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

One is the best wording. It is the most neutral of the three, and it makes the most sense. Yahel Guhan 04:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Version 1 is my choice, too. It is clear and accurate. My view is that Misplaced Pages users are capable of detecting "agendas" and can be trusted to evaluate conflicting opinions without paternalistic "help". The use of plain, accurate, language, even if it employs terms that some debate partisans also use, can never be wrong or forbidden just because partisans use the same of similar language. If a Misplaced Pages article does its job and accurately and neutrally portrays major positions in a controversy, doing so in plain, clear, English, Misplaced Pages readers will well-served. SocJan (talk) 05:54, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

1, or "adult/child sexual relations" FrederickTG (talk) 09:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Definitely 1. The others seem way too point of view. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} 22:08, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Version of the Intro from the MedComWiki

The most recent version everyone endorsed on mediation is the following (refs are dummies).

Pro-pedophile activism or pro-paedophile activism encompasses advocacy for changes in criminal laws or cultural mores about pedophilia. It seeks to alter negative attitudes towards adults' sexual attraction towards children. Some also call for reform of child pornography legislation, social acceptance of adults' sexual activities with children, geraly considered to be child sexual abuse, or changes in age of consent laws and the DSM mental illness classifications. Some pro-pedophile groups are involved in opposing vigilante groups that target adults attracted to children.

An increasing public focus on and disapproval of pedophilia has motivated more stringent legislation and stronger criminal penalties regarding child pornography, child sexual abuse, and use of the internet to facilitate these offenses. Most people strongly oppose the movement to grant pro-pedophile activism status as a valid political or civil rights movement. Opposition to pro-pedophile activism, known as anti-pedophile activism, has the stated goal of protecting children from predatory pedophiles.

Nobody seems to have any major issues with the current intro either, but I can't speak for everybody.

Currently we are in the process of discussing the problem of problematic users and new SPA's that are possibly sockpuppets. We seem to be close to a solution there too, and personally I expect a motion to close soon. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 07:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The wretched and tortured grammar employed in the second sentence to shoehorn "generally considered to be child sexual abuse" is absurd. This can be suitably addressed in the portions of the article (like the second paragraph) that state these things. Tomyumgoong (talk)

Err, no, we cannot fail to mention CSA in the opening, and why would we want to? Even the PPAs admit that what they want to legalize is currently called child sexual abuse so we cannot use any other term. I still fail to see why we don't adapt my version as my version says PPAs want to convert what we call child sexual abuse into something legalized and full accepted by our society. Hmm? Perhaps we need to tag this article talk as fringe, sounds as likely as green cheese being the main constituent of Mars, but that is what these folk want, and we need to express their beliefs in an encyclopedic manner, not do anything else. Thanks, SqueakBox 19:20, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

You can if you like. You could even incorporate some of the second paragraph into the opening. I would consider the opening the whole intro section, but no matter where you wish to include it do so grammatically. Tomyumgoong (talk) 19:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I should note further that this poorly worded bit is the only mention of opposition at all in the first paragraph, while the second paragraph of the opening deals with the matter extensively. If you actually want to mention the popular opinion that such behaviors are abusive before the second paragraph of the opening, surely it can be worded into an appropriate sentence of its own. Tomyumgoong (talk) 19:33, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

another perspective for the intro

• Here is a suggestion for a rewrite of the intro, based on a combination of the current article, the mediation version, and the discussion above. The last several sentences have not been modified.

Pro-pedophile activism (also spelled pro-paedophile activism) refers to a fringe † very small loosely-organized socio-political movement advocating societal acceptance of pedophilia as a sexual orientation rather than a psychological disorder. Pro-pedophile activists also advocate the related goals of "normalizing" the concept of sexual activities involving an adult and a child (defined as child sexual abuse in all modern industrialized countries), legalizing such activities by lowering or abolishing the age of consent laws, and reform of child pornography legislation. These goals are based on pro-pedophile activist beliefs that it is possible for an adult to engage in sexual interaction with a child without harming the child; beliefs the activists claim are supported by controversial and widely-disputed research papers such as the Rind et al Meta-analysis and the Kinsey Reports. Some but not all pro-pedophile activists self-identify as pedophiles, or as adults attracted to children in a sexual or romantic way. Pro-pedophile activists consider have described their movement as analogous to other new social movements, in particular the LGBT social movements, and some call for what they describe as "children's rights", to allow children to make their own decisions about sexual relationships without constraint by the authority of their parents or other adults.

Present-day pro-pedophile activism occurs mostly through websites and internet discussion forums; in the past it appeared in periodicals such as the Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia (1987–1995) and in a small number membership organizations such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association that are mostly inactive today. Select pro-pedophile groups are involved in opposing vigilante groups that target anyone alleged to have a sexual attraction to children.

An increasing public focus on and disapproval of pedophilia has motivated more stringent legislation and stronger criminal penalties regarding child pornography, child sexual abuse, and use of the internet to facilitate these offenses. Most people strongly oppose the movement to grant pro-pedophile activism status as a valid political or civil rights movement. Opposition to pro-pedophile activism, known as anti-pedophile activism, has the stated goal of protecting children from predatory pedophiles.

re: source(s) added later (see comments following)

† re-edited per discussion below. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comments? --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 03:28, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Horrible compared to the existing one... Far too long, very evaluative. Parts of it are great to incorporate into the durrent intro. Even the current intro, though, is too long. Maybe if the so-called "mediation version" wasn't off-wiki, privately/secretly crafted, by only selected/"approved" editors. Outside-looking-in, it's not helping. Maybe it is and that's just not visible. Impossible to tell. With four {{fact}} tags in the intro also - and probably a couple more needed - it just looks awful... really, it looks worse than it actually reads, though. I'll give it that the full text isn't as bad as a first/quick glance of it. Still, the current version is more workable and far less evaluative. • VigilancePrime • • • 03:55 (UTC) 16 Mar '08

FYI, as an aside, I have not been part of the meditation, I only saw the version they posted above. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The fact tags are there because I didn't have the sources for those handy, though I had seen the statements in the literature and they can be found again. For example, is this statement inaccurate?:

Pro-pedophile activists consider their movement to be analogous to other new social movements, in particular the LGBT social movements,

and this statement?:

and some call for what they describe as "children's rights", to allow children to make their own decisions about sexual relationships without constraint by the authority of their parents or other adults.

... that is a rewording of this from the article that is unclear:

contemporary authority relations between adults and minors.

Since my fact tags have been called awful, I looked for some sources:

"The American government's campaign against the sexual rights of young people has been so successful that most gay men, lesbians, and feminists are convinced that the movement to repeal age-of-consent laws was nothing more than an attempt to guarantee rapacious adults the right to vulnerable child victims." - from Feminism, Pedophilia, and Children's Rights, by by Pat Califia in: Paidika, 1991 & in The Culture of Radical Sex, 1994

The above is from a reprint on a pro-pedophile activist website so before using the source, it needs to be cited properly, but it shows that what I wrote was not made up, it's in the pro-pedophile activist literature.

For this:

advocating societal acceptance of pedophilia as a sexual orientation rather than a psychological disorder.

a source:

Heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality and paedophilia should be considered equally valuable forms of human behavior. - The Dutch Paedophile Emancipation Movement, Dr. Frits Bernard, Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia, volume 1 number 2 (Autumn 1987), p. 35-45

Other sources can be found. I left fact tags because I figured this text would not be used, so why do the work?

The PPA movement is small and fringe. On further reflection I suppose that's OR to state it in that way though, because there are no books or scholar articles on Google that even mention the term. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 04:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is OR as it is evaluative. The references are fine... I just think that having all the "citation needed" lines detract, ya know? As for the statements being true or not, I'm not knowledgable enough on the topic to know definitively whether it's true or not; I'm here mostly for bias and original research maintenance. While I tend to agree with the "is it true" angle, I'm reminded that Misplaced Pages (as you've pointed out to me before) is about verifiability, not truth. That's all. And totally, if the text won't stay, no point in doin the work to source it! (Though I've done that...) So, Jack, we're in agreement overall, I think... make the intro true, verifiable, and non-evaluative. THat's what I'm understanding. Thoughts? • VigilancePrime • • • 05:03 (UTC) 16 Mar '08

For this one:

Pro-pedophile activists consider their movement to be analogous to other new social movements, in particular the LGBT social movements,

here's a source:

When a core of deviant group members begin to identify with each other and reject the dominant culture's assessment of their worth, as some women did in the first and second waves of feminism, as blacks did in the 1950's and 60's, and as gays and lesbians did in the late 60's and 70's, and as some pedophiles are doing now, the claim is made that the dominant categories are incorrect and changeable social creations. ... black theorists argue that black culture and life was largely invisible to both blacks and whites in the pre-civil rights period, feminist theorists claim that male categories marginalized and delegitimatized women, homosexuals were ridiculed and dismissed in the 1950's, and pedophiles are vilified today. ... Though pedophile organizations were originally a part of the gay/lesbian coalition, gay organizations distance themselves from pedophile organizations in the same way as feminist leaders sought to separate themselves from lesbians. -- The Pattern of Sexual Politics: Feminism, Homosexuality and Pedophilia, Harris Mirkin, J.Homosex, Vol. 37, No. 2 (1999)

I've put in the text above where the sources would go. The citations are preliminary and not formatted. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding a source for the first phrase:

Pro-pedophile activism (also spelled pro-paedophile activism) refers to a small fringe socio-political movement advocating...

... the rest of the sentence is sourced per the above, however... is there a source for the definition of PPA as a "socio-political movement"? Perhaps, but it's unclear. There is a documented "Dutch Paedophile Emancipation Movement", but that is a particular movement with a particular history, not a wider social phenomenon, so maybe it doesn't generalize. Is there a definition of PPA at all in the sources? I'm not sure there is, though there are descriptions of the activities of activists. Is there a source that the movement (if it is a movement), is small and fringe? That's a good question. The facts are that it is small and fringe, that we know, because it's got no traction, no significant presence in the political discussions of the world or even on Google. But we can't cite a negative, so it's an open question. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it qualifies as a "socio-political movement"; that seems to make it out to be way more than it is. Small is fine, even unsourced (as I don't think that's contentious) but to label it "fringe" seems a little weasel-wordy (and would no matter to what the word is applied). Just to state "... is a very small, loosely-organized..." would be sufficient, and I think we can all agree that this is (ostensibly) accurate, thus references become less demanded as it wouldn't qualify as contentious.

You bring up a good point about PPA and APA even being true terms... I think that both are somewhat contrived. I don't know. Just seems kinda thin. Personally I don't think the opening right now is particularly bad, and while it could use some tweaking and modification, why make any sweeping changes to it if it's reasonably agreeable to most involved/editing wikipedians? • VigilancePrime • • • 05:35 (UTC) 16 Mar '08

Your suggestion of "... is a very small, loosely-organized..." would be OK with me. As to why I offered the rewrite... mainly because the current wording seemed unclear, doesn't note that the movement places itself with other recent social movements that have been successful and accepted by society, and doesn't address the smallness or obscurity of the activism. Overall, it seemed to me that a more socio-political focus was better, because that's what "activism" is about. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you totally there. I think, now that I read your agreement with the "suggestion", that "very small, loosely-organized" says "fringe" without saying it in that evaluative, passing-judgement manner. Same thing, better words. And yes, it is somewhat unclear... then again, so is the "movement" (if there really is a true "movement"), eh? • VigilancePrime • • • 06:26 (UTC) 16 Mar '08

OK then, I've re-edited that sentence with this change. Have a good evening. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And you. Always enjoy collaborating like this with you all. Take care, • VigilancePrime • • • 06:49 (UTC) 16 Mar '08

I'd support your intor as currently is, Jack. Thanks, SqueakBox 21:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

1. Cite error: The named reference spiegel was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
2. "The Case for Abolishing the Age of Consent Laws," an editorial from NAMBLA News (1980), reproduced in We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook of Gay and Lesbian Politics. Ed. by Mark Blasius and Shane Phelan. London: Routledge, 1997. pgs. 459-67.
3. Benoit Denizet-Lewis (2001). "Boy Crazy," Boston Magazine.
4. ANU - A Blog About Paedophilia - Facts, Studies, Editorials, Information and Law
5. The Signal: News for Santa Clarita Valley, California
6. Jenkins, Philip. Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. pg. 78: "Pedophile implies coercion, exploitation, and even violence, so that to show any tolerance or sympathy for the condition is socially unacceptable."
7. Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. pg. 116.
8. Network operators warn against underage sex - Internet Business News
9. The Difference Between "Sick" and "Evil" by Andrew Vachss (Parade): The Zero 5.0laf - The Official Website of Andrew Vachss

• Old requests for peer review