Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Violence against men (4th nomination)

Violence against men

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Violence against men
• Articles for deletion/Violence against men (2nd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Violence against men (3rd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Violence against men (4th nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Violence against men (5th nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Violence against men and women

Violence against men (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This page has been deleted twice already and renamed once, so I think it's worth discussing whether or not we want to keep this latest incarnation. My personal opinion is that the article is merely synthesis of various statistics, and does not reflect a coherent topic of coverage sufficiently distinct from violence. In theory, you could create any number of articles of the type "Violence against X", for example, Violence against 20–30 year olds, but in most cases, the scope is not going to be sufficiently distinct from violence. The reason we have a Violence against women article is because there is a large body of theory and research devoted to this as a distinct phenomenon. Same with Child abuse. In other words, there are many reliable sources devoted exclusively to those subjects and the subjects are distinct encyclopedic topics. As the vast majority of violence is perpetrated by and against men, there is no need for a separate article devoted to that (just as there is no need for articles devoted to Violence against adults or Violence during war). Kaldari (talk) 22:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

*Comment The article that was previously redirected is here [1]. That article was mostly about domestic violence and it was redirected to Domestic violence against men. We have articles like Violence against women in Guatemala and Domestic violence in Peru with many more for each individual country. But not for Men? Really? The article that was redirected was not the same article. Please look at content. The article is sourced with research articles published in peer reviewed journals, so this is clearly a topic of interest for research scientists.USchick (talk) 23:12, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• Note: Before this article was recreated, it was discussed at Talk:Domestic violence against men#Violence against men. A WP:Permalink for that discussion is here. Flyer22 (talk) 23:04, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:55, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. Educational and encyclopedic. Good introduction to sub articles referenced in links in the article. Nice use of structure and organization to frame key topic points. Could use expansion with additional secondary sources, particularly with an emphasis on scholarly and academic source coverage. — Cirt (talk) 23:34, 26 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete for the reasons given by Kaldari, & for the same reasons given in the first two deletion debates. Just because an article is encyclopedic & has lots of citations doesn't make it notable (plus, the last section in the article has nothing to do with violence against men). I'm not quite sure why the third debate had so many more comments than the first two — reeks a bit of canvassing to me. Domestic violence against men already exists, no need to have this second page — and the fact that the talk page on that article has become a forum for weird misogyny makes me quite suspicious of the motives behind creating this one. Not sure why we need to have this same conversation repeatedly. CircleAdrian (talk) 07:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per Cirt. NRVE says that a topic should not be deleted on grounds of notability if it is likely that adequate coverage exists. I am under the impression that there is so much literature on violence that the no one could read all of it. In view of volume of literature on violence, the breadth of the sub topic, and the fact that the distinction between men and women is an obvious one, I infer that it is likely further coverage exists. The expression "violence against men" itself seems to appear in quite a lot of sources in GBooks, GScholar and so forth. In any event, I am inclined to view the topic as inherently notable. I don't think that the analogy with an article on violence against persons aged 20 to 30 is valid, because dividing a topic into men and women, or into adults and children, is obvious, whereas the age range suggested appears arbitrary, there being, as far as I am aware, not much difference, in terms of biology or social position, between persons aged 29 and 31. I am not convinced by the "vast majority" argument either. I am not convinced, for example, that a vast majority of 78% of homicide victims is vast enough (I don't know if this figure is applicable to other forms of violence). If that number was 99%, I might think differently. In any event, I can think of sub topics that are clearly distinct from their parent topics despite forming the vast majority of their parent topics, such as the distinction between civil and criminal law. Without prejudice to the questions of notability and forking, I think this is a plausible redirect to Violence, of which it is a sub-topic. Since neither original synthesis, nor non-notability, nor unnecessary forking are, as far as I am aware, grounds for revision deletion, they are not grounds for the deletion of a plausible redirect either, so the page is not eligible for deletion on those grounds (WP:R). I think I should also point out that the correct procedure for original research is to transwiki it to Wikiversity using the import process, followed, where appropriate, by deletion under CSD A5, rather than sending it to AfD. I think that Violence against adults, mentioned in the nomination, should be redirected to Violence (without prejudice to future expansion). I don't think it is an obviously implausible topic, as there is, for example, an offence of allowing or causing the death of a vulnerable adult in England. Even the topic of violence during war isn't obviously out of the question since I am under the impression that it is quite possible to have a war without violence. In fact, at one point, it was extremely common for armies, instead of fighting each other, to engage in manouveres that I think have been described as a form of "shadow boxing" designed to bankrupt the other sides treasury. I also take the view that topics should normally be redirected to their parent topic rather than a sub-topic. A redirect to an article on domestic violence seems to imply that is the only or primary form of violence against men. James500 (talk) 08:27, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep I try to base my decisions on what minimizes harm to the encyclopedia, while maximizing benefit. In this instance, I see very little, if any, harm in letting this article remain. On the other hand, removal of the "Violence Against Men" while retaining "Violence Against Women" could be percieved (rightly or wrongly) as discriminatory and agenda-driven to an outside observer. It is not enough to act with integrity and without bias... one must also APPEAR to act with integrity. Particularly with a project which depends on outside voluntary funding, appearances matter, and there is alredy plenty of fodder for the "Wikipedia is biased" crowd, in the media and elsewhere, without dishing more up to them on a silver platter... that this AfD was initiated by the creator of Wikiproject Feminism would be icing on the cake we'd be serving up to some critics of the encyclopedia. In sum, the potential downsides in this instance (potential damage to the reputation of the encylopedia), outweigh the minmial upsides and benefit of removing a perhaps borderline article. Marteau (talk) 12:46, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete I think what's obvious here is that in order to remain a standalone article, Violence against men needs to have a body of information that is both distinct from the Domestic article, and the violence in general article, and WP:N on its own. I don't think that's currently met. Simply put, and anecdotally, I don't think there's enough independent incidents of violence against men /because/ they are men. At least not yet, or not recorded with data and news coverage. Maybe that's because of the way gender differences exist in our society, and such violence DOES occur. But Wikipedia articles need sources, and they need independent notability, I don't think that's met here. It doesn't have enough standalone info to be worthy of its own page. I would be in support of a subsection of Domestic Violence against men, though I know that seems strange/badly categorized. It's the best solution I can come up with. --Shibbolethink (talk) 14:36, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• I am not convinced either article has to be confined to violence done to men or women because they are respectively male or female. The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women defines violence against women as including both violence that affects women because they are women and violence that affects women disproportionately (emphasis added). So, by that logic, presumably violence against men includes violence that affects men disproportionately, whether or not it is done because they are men. Moreover, I am not convinced that either article should not respectively include all violence that affects persons of the respective gender, since that is the respective literal meaning of both expressions. James500 (talk) 16:34, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep - I think this is an excellent article that highlights several important topics which I have been unable to find elsewhere. It also uses excellent and verified links to prove the points it makes. I don't understand why we keep getting radical feminists trying to remove pages about male suffering ?? Is it because they can't handle them not being identified as the victims 24/7 ? It's a little weird, I thought we banned all the raving loony feminists ? --Westside12345 (talk) 23:17, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Is this your only account? It is strange for a user to say "we banned those nutters" in their first post. Who exactly is "we"? Haminoon (talk) 10:49, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes it is my only account but it was made public (just for the record that doesn't require an account on here to hear about it) that a lot of radical feminists were going around trying to add biased and inaccurate and often sexist material to articles. They were then banned from wikipedia. Again to clarify that information was made available on other websites. I assume you are aware there are other websites other than this one ? --Westside12345 (talk) 15:56, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep To delete the Violence against men article while maintaining the Violence against women article would be fundamentally sexist, and such an action has no place in the Wikipedia project. Misandry and misogyny are two sides of the same coin. 70.109.187.181 (talk) 16:11, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep- In my opinion, the sources in the article demonstrate that violence against men, because of their gender, is a thing that is studied in acedemic literature. The very well sourced section on wartime sexual abuse of men make this article more than just a "domestic violence against men" fork. The article would be improved if it omitted the last section, which is off-topic, and included more material on civilian men being murdered during war time, but I see the article's only a few days old and clearly has a lot of potential to improve. Reyk _YO! 19:30, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
  • And I found a potentially useful describing both mandatory conscription and sex-selective murder of civilians as violence against men: [2]. Reyk _YO! 14:14, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep Is this supposed to be a joke, the assertion that violence against men is not sufficiently distinct from violence in general? Jay Vogler (talk) 21:12, 27 February 2015
• Keep UNLESS you are planning on deleting the violence against women page as well. The only reason to delete this page would be pure bigotry.

(UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calum Henderson (talk • contribs)

• '"Keep'" extreme feminism will end .... it will take the form of implosion as all neo nazi movements do ... there is no such thing as domestic violence as domestic is an adjective. ... adjectives cannot be laws ... there is either violence or no violence present ... the term domestic is political and used by politicians to get elected and also used by corporate conglomerates to advertise to women who account for spending over 70% disposable household income ...if Wikipedia is complicit in this then it must expect the same outcome as the extremists it would be supporting ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yankeescouser (talk • contribs) 21:42, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Umm, you're really losing me with that train of thought. The question here isn't what you think about feminism, the question is whether this topic is encyclopedic and notable under GNG. Carrite (talk) 00:46, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Strong Keep Coming from the same editor who closed the discussion on the previous AfD for this article, and who coincidentally is also the creator of Wikiproject Feminism, this smacks of WP:IDONTLIKEIT to me. If the genders were reversed, would any of this discussion be happening? Seems to me like it would be a snowball keep with people reporting the filer to ANI. Which I wouldn't agree with either way, but. 76.64.13.4 (talk) 22:05, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Note: The page Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/violenceagainstwomen has been created by User:Calum Henderson, who has also put an AFD notice at the top of the article Violence against women. This strikes me as a more than a bit WP:POINTy, but I'm bringing it to folks' attention because it doesn't seem to be showing up on the AFD log for today (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2015 February 27). EastTN (talk) 22:16, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
• Note to closer - It looks like someone has posted this to an MRA board, which I guess was inevitable. Most of the previous 8 comments appear to be from anons or SPAs and should probably either be removed or ignored. Kaldari (talk) 00:08, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't the above an ad-hominem attack? 208.53.116.168 (talk) 00:19, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

You can't pick and choose which comments to ignore based on your own personal bias. We're all users of Wikipedia and all have an equal say, regardless of our backgrounds. None of these comments should be removed or ignored. Seth Forsman PhD (talk) 01:30, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, is it really your argument here that, when considering the status of an article about hardships experienced by men, the opinions of activists who specifically advocate for the rights of men should be ignored, because of their advocacy? But feminist points of view should not be subject to the same treatment? I am not an MRA and have no idea what "board" you have in mind, but I don't understand why anyone would call for those views to be summarily dismissed. If you suspect WP:CANVASsing, that's another matter, but one that could do with some evidence.

Per the template header on the edit form: All input is welcome, though valid arguments citing relevant guidelines will be given more weight than unsupported statements. It is explicitly not policy to "remove or ignore" comments here, although the closer should indeed be aware that this is not a vote. 76.64.13.4 (talk) 05:03, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep Citing "a large body of theory and research devoted to this as a distinct phenomenon." doesn't mean that any other subject should be dismissed. Further "As the vast majority of violence is perpetrated by and against men," would seem to be an argument for keeping it rather than dismissing it as irrelevant. Obviously, if it's the most likely form of violence, it makes sense to keep and expand on the article. Moreover, as opposed to Violence Against Women, the lack of theory and research devoted to the most prevalent form of violence appears to be a gross oversight. I'm sure there are plenty of resources to pull from, in reality. The notion that violence against women is a "phenomenon" indicates that it isn't a very specific type of violence and that violence against men is not, as if violence towards women was unnatural but violence towards men is natural. I have to disagree with this mischaracterization and agree with the other proponents that this would be a form of discrimination and will appear incredibly biased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:C591:A640:E950:C6E1:8D54:C50 (talk) 00:38, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep - The fact that a topic is encyclopedic and has lots of references does indeed mean that it is notable in WP terms, per GNG. I suggest that Domestic violence against women/Violence against women and Domestic violence against men/Violence against men be brought into some sort of structural symmetry. But as for deletion, the only possible grounds here is that the topic is a fork and I feel that it is not — domestic violence being a subset of violence, which also includes such things as castration and prison rape. Carrite (talk) 00:43, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Note: Since it is clear to me by the WP:Single purpose accounts weighing in on this discussion that editors (very likely men's rights editors, who, if they are IPs, also very likely have registered Wikipedia accounts) have been WP:Canvassed to this discussion, I have alerted Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force to this debate. I am also tempted to alert WP:Feminism, but enough WP:Feminism editors watch the WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force talk page. Besides, someone else might alert WP:Feminism anyway. Flyer22 (talk) 05:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Update: An IP alerted WP:Feminism. Given the obvious inappropriate WP:Canvassing that has gone on regarding this deletion debate (despite my hope that this deletion debate would close quietly without such disruption), it is tainted, and editors might want to alert Talk:Men's rights movement/Article probation of this matter, which I might very well do, if no one beats me to it first. I have also alerted WP:Med of this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 07:34, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Delete as mostly SYNTH and OR. Violence_against_men#Violent_crime, Violence_against_men#Self-directed_violence, and Violence_against_men#Sexual_violence are entirely OR/SYNTH. Violence_against_men#Are_men_inherently_violent.3F is COATRACK and actually about male violence, not violence against men. There's nothing worth keeping if those are removed, so NUKEANDPAVE. I will add discussion about Violence against women is WP:OTHERSTUFF, and ignores the fact that that topic is internationally notable (e.g., Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women). The encyclopedia is not about parity, it's about reflecting notability and reliable sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EvergreenFir (talk • contribs)

• WP:N has never required that topics be international, so that isn't really an argument against this article. We normally accept national topics, and often sub-national ones. OTHERSTUFF is an essay, and it admits that such arguments may not always be devoid of merit. That essay is primarily concerned with arguments that an article should not be deleted because similar articles, which may also be invalid, have not yet been deleted; the essay might not be applicable where the similar article is admitted to be valid. James500 (talk) 09:17, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep The argument that violence against men is not different enough from violence as a whole is strange, as it is arguing that some violence is more noteworthy than others. This may be true from a societal viewpoint, but not from an academic viewpoint. The objective and equal distinction is that violence is an umbrella that covers many topics, including articles such as: violence against specific groups, the societal/evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of violence, the causes of violence, and other narrower topics. Just because a narrow field is not heavily researched does not mean that it should be deleted or assumed under it's overarching topic. To me, that means the article should be left up so it can be edited and changed as more information becomes available. TheWaters (talk) 06:26, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep The larger issue here has less to do with the article, but rather who initiated the "deletion". Not to discount the vast amount of Wiki-related projects Kaldari has contributed to, but it would appear that Kaldari - OFFICIALLY RETIRED - credits themselves with creating a Feminism WikiProject. There is a clearly a conflict of interest. It would be like the creator of National Association of Police Organizations calling for the deletion of Police brutality. Hogwash.

Has "Violence against men" been researched extensively as the converse? Of course not.

But calling for the deletion of a subject with which the usurper may or may not have personal issues with is both callous and a form of censorship. In principal, such philosophy flies against Wikipedia's expressed purpose.Grillmaster423 (talk) 06:55, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• • Please discuss the merits of the article, and don't attack the nominator. Same goes for all of you who are accusing the nominator of bias or bigotry. Reyk_YO! 07:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
  • I completely agree that this subject should be discussed on its own merit and not the people discussing it, however, that's a two-way street. Both sides need to refrain from attacking those discussing here. Seth Forsman PhD (talk) 12:02, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
  • This is not in any way a conflict of interest. Haminoon (talk) 07:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep "The motives for violence against women are similar to the motives for violence against men: to gain control or retribution and to promote or defend self-image. The motives play a role in almost all violence, regardless of gender." I believe this article could be improved to better dictate the key points specific to violence against men that aren't domestic violence specific, but delete it all together would silence important dialogue pertaining to an issue that is becoming more and more relevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andelocks (talk • contribs) 07:01, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete. Synthetic (possibly tendentious) topic that lacks on-point sourcing and so fails WP:GNG. This leads to the embarrassment of an article we currently have containing the tortuous illiterate & illogical, e.g.: "In armed conflict, sexual violence is committed by men against men as psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy.". Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 08:02, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep. Non partisan on this subject; a few minutes clicking through the references in the article made it clear (to me at least) that there are distinct patterns of violence against men, and that these have been the subject of study by both academic and government groups - the topic is notable. -TB (talk) 08:23, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete Non-notable WP:SYNTH with the subtext that there is no such thing as Violence against women because (it is claimed) everyone has violence perpetrated against them, and violence against females is matched by the same violence against males. Only trouble is, there are no authoritative secondary sources making that claim. Johnuniq (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Delete While the topic is notable and there should be proper sources to build an article without resorting to synthesizing facts it currently stands as an extremely poor mix of general statistics and poorly sourced statements. The article falls under WP:SYNTH, although it is possible to improve it I support deleting it in its current format. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 10:37, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Advocating that articles on "notable" topics that are "possible to improve" be deleted... Astounding. Simply astounding. Were that philosophy extended to the encylopedia as a whole, we would not HAVE an encylopedia. Marteau (talk) 12:30, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

You misunderstand, most likely deliberately. None of the content in the current article is appropriate, and slimming down the article to the single sentence of value that would persist: "Violence against men is violence against men" is grounds enough for deletion. Rather if the article were to be recreated it would require the use of the extensive sociological, anthropological and psychological literature that is available, instead of using io9 sensationalist nonsense combined with random statistics. Even a notable topic needs to at least reach stub status to be included in Wikipedia. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 13:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

I misunderstand nothing. The fact is, you admit the topic is notable, you admit there is information available to improve it, you admit it can be improved, yet rather than give it a little time to improve, you advocate its outright deletion. That is, as I said, astounding. Marteau (talk) 13:19, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes you do. Articles may be deleted for lack of content, regardless of whether they have potential to be improved. I do not oppose having the article, simply having such an abysmal article as was this one in its previous state. Some of my concerns have been dealt with, but I still stand behind that without the improvements it should have been deleted. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 13:35, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• WP:IMPERFECT, WP:PRESERVE, WP:ATD and WP:BEFORE all say that we don't delete an article on a valid topic because of content issues that can be fixed through normal editing. James500 (talk) 14:29, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep: Though this topic has always been surrounded by controversy, both here on Wikipedia and elsewhere, it's a topic that we're going to have to deal with as long as one can establish notability. Based on the coverage amongst third-party publications, I'm inclined to believe that this is a valid topic. The article content may not be as good as one would hope, but that in itself shouldn't be a reason for deletion. --benlisquare_T•C•E 10:42, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep: - controversial articles does not equal deletion. Clearly notable article. Period.--BabbaQ (talk) 11:41, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep and Improve I ran across this when checking the GGTF to see if anyone replied to a notice of an article that I placed on Jimbo's talk page about the toxic editing atmosphere and how we might improve it. Sounds like a crusade to eliminate something that does noes not reflect a political POV. Violence against men is real and destructive to families. The notion that this is not a big deal is purely political. Not having an article on this is not improving but harming the encyclopedia. The violence against women is destructive to families and I would say keep that if it ever came up. 208.54.38.224 (talk) 13:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep - Obviously notable topic with clearly reliable sources. Deep Purple Dreams (talk) 14:08, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per James500's logic above. This topic clearly is notable under GNG (see this search for example). Obviously the article needs improvement but that's no reason to delete. I'd say more but am writing on phone. Ruby 2010/2013 15:13, 28 February 2015 (UTC)