Talk:International marriage agency

South Korea

While the facts are true, it seems quite malignant and one-sided. It's important to maintain neutrality when presenting facts. The section of the article with the murder is unnecessary - one murder case involving a mail-order bride is not pertinent to this article: it's just one freak occurance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barshank (talk • contribs) 10:13, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Agreed that the mail-order bride murder should not be in the intro. It's been removed. But there is a lot of information on the internet about South Korean men and mail-order brides. I am not trying to paint anything either this way or that way. The Independent (London) deemed the story about the man killing the mail-order bride to be pertinent, connecting it to the main reason it made news: she was a mail-order bride. But further, the article backs up the unfortunate recurring theme of many mail-order bride incidents in South Korea - the accusations of violence and/or neglect. Indeed, it is very unfortunate about the violence. And if you find credible articles from reliable sources that chronicle the good side of mail-order bride relations in South Korea, please post. Nevertheless, it is part of the factual context. Please refer to the article itself for more, and do refer to the articles themselves in credible publications. Also, feel free to add more information that you see fit from credible, reliable sources. But the fact is, the credible sources out there are not reporting much that is positive about South Korean men and their seeming intense interest in mail-order brides. That's just reality. And it has nothing to do with whether I like it or you like it. It is just what credible news sources are reporting. And that is what Wikipedia is all about. Computer1200 (talk) 05:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I would recommend that particular section regarding murder by insane person be removed until corresponding section regarding Vietnamese-Korean Marriage Issues can be expanded. Cultural implications, role of International Marriage Agencies in Vietnamese-Korean marriages, and official view of both governments and statistics of public opinions should be included. I think the one off murder is tangential at best in absence of all of those facts at this point in the article's maturity. Either that or roll that example into more relevant subject of "Practice of International Marriage Agencies in Vetting Clients' Qualifications." and then expand upon it, rather than just stating news bite items in isolation. Thoughts? Dchem (talk) 07:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. However, I would disagree that the murder case is tangential. I think it directly speaks to the abuse issue, regardless of whether it is attached to a lack of vetting of potential Korean clients. The vetting issue is an important issue that should be added to the article if you can find credible sources that deal with it, but it does not preclude entry of the murder case, even more so because it references a credible source (The Independent). Also, your edit is full of grammatical errors. Ultimately, I disagree with some of your statements in the edit notes like "weasel statement" or the edit about south korean defectors -- all certainly debatable and therefore not up for direct editing without discussion. Until we have time to more accurately deal with your suggestions, I am inserting the original text. In the end, such extensive edits on a controversial article certainly require discussion here first.Computer1200 (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, the weasel statement was regarding my own edit I reversed my original sentence that contained a weasel statement. The term 'weasel statement' is also in one of the guidelines of making an wiki article better, So please don't take it personally. Secondly, the portion of the article as it was written by you originally does not meet neutrality criteria for a good encyclopedic material. See Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view, The reasons for not meeting a good neutrality criteria are as follows:

• The original posting repeatedly use categorical "Korean Men" as though all Korean men buy mail order brides. The fact that only six thousand men among male population of roughly twenty million in South Korea utilize international marriage agency to marry women from Philippine make the categorical use of "South Korean men buy mail-order brides regularly" or "Korean men abuses (para)" unjustifiable.
• The original wiki article section on Country Specific Information as interpreted from the original article in Korea Times website contained incorrect summary of the source material. The original wiki article section stated as though all 6000+ cases of marriage among Korean to Philippine women resulted in abuse. The original article section also failed to mention that mail order bride services is illegal in Philippines and that the underlying reasons for problems are mismatched expectations and lack of vetting process by International Marriage Agencies. In essence, the original article section purposefully omitted vital information from the original source materials. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_comprehensive.
• Next, the subject of murder by one deranged person is tangential to the article's focus. If murder by a deranged person merits a subsection in this article, then the article on Marriage and Wedding should have every instance of mentally-ill spouse killing their significant others. Going back to the neutrality criteria for a good article, all of the currently re-rolled subsections still use categorical description rather than presenting objectively neutral perspective. Extensive edits were all in line with the Wikipedia's generally accepted guidelines for good article. When facts are in question (regarding status of defectors) editing guideline is to edit then and there. Finally please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_an_encyclopedia and Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines for underlying reasons why I have made those edits.

Lastly, the number of subsection is a very minor issue to me, but I will elaborate why it should be merged into single section about South Korea. The country specific section of article do not merit subdivision into n-th degree if the facts described were more broad and only one degree of separation from the main focus of International Marriage Agency. If the article were titled "Domestic Abuses of Financially Dependent International Spouse," heavy edits would not have been warranted, but the article is about International Marriage Agency. Article is neither about Domestic Abuses nor about Unequal Relationships in Homogeneous Society.

As it stands right now, based on all of the reasons above and the precedents set by the Wikipedia community, this article would be better served by an extensive edit based on principles of conciseness, neutrality, and proper identification of the article focus. I also believe that original posters of articles or article sections do not have special privilege to adjudicate who has the right to edit and when to edit where verifiable facts were presented. Wikipedia does not confer special rights to original posters. I do not intend to start an editing war, so I will patiently wait your response. We should try to agree where facts were presented, agree on the substance of neutrality guideline, and come to an agreement on the focus of the article. Thanks for your time. Dchem (talk) 01:51, 9 June 2011 (UTC) Dchem (talk) 02:12, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Links

Are there any links to actual sites?

Fraud: Many clients of marriage agencies have complained of fraud. I believe this, but where is the data to substantiate this claim?

I am looking for for statistics, studies, or any data to substantiate the claim that "many clients of [international] marriage agencies have complained of fraud".

Having filed a complaint for annulment of my marriage in the Circuit Court of Etowah County Alabama, alleging fraud, the odds are against my case being adjudicated in my favor.

As a former client of an international marriage agency, I would like to lodge my own complaint for fraud--if I knew where to do so,since the agency is out of business.

Partially due to coercion and threats from my bride, together with veiled threats from extended family memmbers (who all carried guns), and partially due to "wishful thinking", I reluctantly married a Colombian woman 17-yrs my junior, who entered into the marriage under false prentenses, with fraudulent statements and actions.

As a cotholic, she eventually revealed having never felt any moral obligation or commitment to the "civil marriage" and never considered the "civil marriage" legitimate but rather entered into the "civil" "legal" marriage solely for the purpose of circumventing immigration laws, gaining immigration benefits for herself and her son, and eventually for her enter immdiate family and other extended family members. Of course, during the time we lived togther, she availed herself of my significant financial resources but realized she did not love me coincedental to the exhaustion of cash.

Whatever her motives for entering the marriage, she certainly did not intend the objects of matrimony, and therefore committed fraud. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ubu4u2 (talk • contribs) 12:43, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Mail order bride article proposed merge

Mail order bride is always going to have NPOV problems until it is merged here. Tisane (talk) 07:35, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Mental illness

The article says US law now forbids men diagnosed as mentally ill from becoming customers of such agencies.

I followed the link to the Wikipedia article on the law in question, which doesn't mention this rule. Nor does the law itself, as linked to in that article - or at least, sections 831-834, the sections on marriage brokers, don't.

However, various websites that apparently are invested in this industry (either as market or opponent) do back up the claim that mental illness now debars becoming a customer of such an agency.

Um, stupid me, but surely if there's a law, there's some text somewhere that IS that law, no? So where is it?

I'll probably never be a customer of such an agency, but since I've repeatedly been diagnosed with depression, I'm curious whether there's really a US law forbidding me to do so. (Or is "mental illness" here overbroad? Are depressives like me OK, but not schizophrenics? Paranoiacs? Manics? Sociopaths? People with phobias? How about catatonics? ...) This particular list is not referenced; it could easily be referenced to one of those websites I saw, but that wouldn't make it correct.

Usually when I edit Wikipedia articles or talk pages, it's because I want to provide information. Here, it's because I'm dissatisfied with the information provided. Sorry.

Joe Bernstein - joe@sfbooks.com - not a registered Wikipedian, but the article on the Judiciary Act of 1793 is mostly my work at present, or you can see other research bona fides of mine by looking up my website (most recently http://www.panix.com/~josephb/) in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

Oh, and I GOT to this page via "Mail Order Bride", which is not only a dubious social institution but also the title of a 2001 graphic novel by Mark Kalesniko, depicting a resulting marriage roughly as the opponents mentioned above would. (It's set in Canada, so not affected by US laws, anyway.) Neither novel (obviously) nor author currently has a Wikipedia article. I don't know whether either should; Kalesniko apparently isn't totally unknown, but I'd never heard of him before I read the book tonight. 174.24.229.83 (talk) 06:05, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe there is a court case somewhere. Or maybe, as the Act of Congress specifically says that it does not pre-empt state law, the prohibition is in the law of one or more states, rather than in Federal law. Bwrs (talk) 23:47, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Redirect from 'mail order bride'

I wanted information about mail order brides historically, especially in the old west, which is where one always hears the term. Instead there is an article called 'international marriage agency' -- a much less well-known term that enjoys limited usage and which I would guess was only even coined in the past few decades -- which article is almost exclusively about the contemporary manifestation of the phenomena. There ought to be an article 'mail order bride' to talk about the historical phenomena. Apparently someone thought this was innappropriate as an article title because it was not a 'neutral' term. However, I'm pretty sure it's actually descriptive, i.e. people did in fact order brides via mail. 'International marriage agency' is hardly 'neutral' anyway, as it seems to be a euphemism specifically promulgaged by those on one particular side of a contemporary debate about 'mail order' brides (which I'm not interested in -- I want to read about the old west!). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.16.81.6 (talk) 10:32, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Reports of Abuse Section that was removed

The section concerning abuse of mail order brides was removed and this article has been severely mutilated by someone without the consent of others who had worked hard to build this article. Note that you should not remove any content that has a credible citation and is relevant to the article and its contents. The New York article is just that: cited directly, highly credible, highly relevant, and very useful. Again: do not remove content, or I will be forced to ask for the assistance of others to come in and help enforce Wikipedia standards. Note further that to simply disagree, or not personally like the content, in no way whatsoever gives you the right or go-ahead to remove said content. What you may do, however, is post other highly credible sources that back up an argument against the factual news articles being cited. Again the content I have uploaded is simply referring to relevant content from two highly respected newspapers: The New York Times, and the London Independent.

Further, do not remove any content on this discussion page. Thank you much.Computer1200 (talk) 04:27, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

South Korea

Why is there so much about one specific country? I guess many of these problems happen also in other countries. Shouldn´t the article have a more global perspective? --Oddeivind (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

If you have credible sources, then add content that addresses other countries. It just happens that there is quite a bit of material on South Korean men, who have married over 40,000 vietnamese mail-order brides alone, and that does not even include Thai, Lao, Chinese, Malay and other. South Korea is a major importer of mail-order brides, and is very significant for this article. (see the Independent website article). But again, this content should not be removed. It is completely within Wikipedia guidelines and addresses the topic directly while referencing credible sources. It is not enough to remove content by saying that the existing content does not meet some sort of global perspective. Anyone is free to add any other content as long as that content meets Wikipedia guidelines. Computer1200 (talk) 04:15, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits by by Ineverseeu

Just as happened before, someone has come in and freely edited out information simply because they are not comfortable with the information. Ineverseeu has claimed that "this only focuses on the dark side of Koreans and mail order bride." Although that was never the intent, the sentiment has absolutely no bearing on the mission of Wikipedia. You are not allowed to transform an article simply because you are not comfortable with the content. That is not allowed in Wikipedia.

Further, the information that was entered is highly relevant and germane to the the topic. I am not trying to emphasize or de-emphasize any country. Anyone is free to add material about any country. If you want to add relevant content from trustworthy sources, then you are free to do so. The mission of Wikipedia is that relevant sources be used to flesh out articles in order to provide information that is credible, accurate, and trustworthy. I have done that, quoting from highly reputable publications like The New York Times and The Independent. Again: if you have a problem with that information, you need to find ALTERNATIVE sources of information and refute these other highly credible sources.

But to simply swoop in and freely edit is not allowed. If you want to further discuss, do so here. Thank you.Computer1200 (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

So, again, (incident #2 - Feb 1-3, 2011) we have Ineverseeu completely removing country-specific information because he seems to be uncomfortable with it. No discussion on the talk page, no reasons, other than "this only focuses on the 'dark side' of Korea." Again, let me stress, an opinion about content has nothing to do with whether that content is allowable and protected. Obviously-- not being comfortable with the content on South Korea is not criteria to remove anything in this article, or on Wikipedia. If you or others repeatedly try to remove information again, I will go to an admin have you blocked. Again: the information that I have included is relevant, informational, and references credible sources. If you have alternative viewpoints you want to include, feel free to do so. But to remove information that is entirely useful without discussion will get you blocked. Thank you.Computer1200 (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Incident #3, Feb 9 2011, Ineverseeu has stripped the said sections above again, with no discussion or agreement with other editors. I'm re-adding content. Computer1200 (talk) 13:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Incident #4 Feb 10, 2011. Ineverseeu blanks all content that he is uncomfortable with charging "racism" and "irrelevance" with no discussion.Computer1200 (talk) 02:14, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I have just (re)invited Ineverseeu to discuss the issue on the talk page. I've also issued a warning about edit warring. (I do not feel the edits are vandalism; I do feel that repeatedly making the same edits without discussing the issue on the talk page is reaching the level of edit warring.) Hopefully what follows here is Ineverseeu presenting the issues with the text, and then a discussion about whether some or all of the text should be removed, based on Wikipedia policies. —C.Fred (talk) 03:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Xfactor and his for-profit website

Xfactor, you maintain that simply because your blog/site is not contested on other pages that you are justified in inserting into the content of this article. Unfortunately, that does not make your content valid. The only point that this makes is the need to check those articles, and remove the content there as well.

First of all, your blog/site is an advertisement for a business from which you make money. For example, you promote this mail-order bride business: "AnastasiaDate.com." On other pages you advertise hotels, spas, shopping, tours. Plus, you are hosting Google advertisements. So before we ever get to the issues of dubious information on a personal blog that has no credible source from someone who is not considered an expert in a certain field (like a journalist, a professor, or professional who has a blog hosted by a professional organization like a newspaper, a university, or a well-established business) you have established the site as a profit-making venture. That alone means that it cannot be used in anyway in this article.

Please refer to this page for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spam

Secondly, your site and its contents do not represent a source of reliable information. Check this page, please. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Are_weblogs_reliable_sources.3F

Please do not re-enter information without discussion here. Thanks. Computer1200 (talk) 21:02, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

First of all, let me ask you what you consider "credible". My site (and blog) has been on the web for several years. I am a Muscovite myself, and I get pretty much feedback from people who travel to Russia and Moscow, especially people who are looking for love in Russia. So, why would my site be less credible than the article about Moscow in, say, "Independent"? The article quotes a lot of newspapers, but how do you know they are reliable? After all, haven't we witnessed all kinds of false information reported by CNN or BBC? So go ahead, remove references to online newspaper articles as well because how can you be sure they are true? You call newspapers "a professional organization", but how professional are they?

Second, I completely *disagree* with the headline of this discussion - "Xfactor and his for-profit website". My website features loads and loads of free information. The article I referred to was "Russian women scams", and it's in no way a money maker. On the contrary, it contains a lot of useful information - which is completely *free*. Yes, in the beginning I also quoted page about dating agencies, but I removed it myself after I received an automatic notification.

I mean, come on! Look at the list of sources. Several Korean newspaper articles coupled with several British ones, each of them is just a research made by some journalist that you most probably can't trust. If you take your policy a little bit further, you may just as well shut this Wikipedia page down because it doesn't have very reliable sources.

You know, I don't really care if the link to my site appears here or not, but I refuse to be called a spammer (and that is what you're trying to say between the lines).I also do not want my blog to be called "dubious" just because it has several ads here and there. Oh, and have you looked at the pages of "The Independent"? They also have several Adsense placements. So are they dubious, too?

One last thing. You say I'm not considered an expert? Considered by who? My visitors do consider me an expert, and I'm sure you didn't really bother to look at my site, you just saw a page with dating agency advertising and immediately jumped to conclusions. Well, it's no wonder that this Wikipedia article is so small and non-comprehensive. Xfactor2000 (talk) 07:28, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Your website, which does make money for you, is very new and unknown compared to these news organizations, that are backed up by thousands of employees, reporters, and highly respected columnists. Are you lumping yourself into that category? If not, then you website cannot bet treated the same way. Further, The New York Time, and the Independent are highly respected, well-known and, yes, well-trusted news organizations. Your website is not in the same league at all, nor in the same category (journalism). You have no basis to call any of these sources into question as something you "probably cannot trust." And you say "each of them is just a research made by some journalist that you most probably can't trust."? On the contrary, people trust these organizations highly. This is not to say that you do not perform a nice service for a certain market. But if there are no rules on Wikipedia in this area, it would be overrun with all kinds of advertisements posing as reliable and credible information. There must be boundaries.

I have a suggestion, however. Do you have any information to add to the page concerning russia that is from a source that would fit wikipedia criteria? I think the test for you is can you find something different than your site for similar information, that fits the criteria. Then everyone will know for sure that you are not just trying to advertise your blog, and that you truly only care about adding relevant content. And by the way, I did look at your site; I even mentioned specific things in my post above. Computer1200 (talk) 15:31, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Please clarify

This Wiki article quotes a news source as saying that "Korean men characterize Southeast Asian women as girls who are friendly, work hard because they come from agrarian societies, and are 'docile and obedient, able to speak English, and are familiar with Korean patriarchal culture.'" Why would Korean men care whether a woman can speak English or not? Bwrs (talk) 22:36, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Why so much focus on South Korea?

Why so much focus on South Korea? The international mail order bride is a globally business with North American and Western European men who seeks wives in other countries. Who ever wrote the piece about South Korea has a very bias view point on South Korea . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chanta2827 (talk • contribs) 06:05, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

This entry needs a heavy rewrite

It's riddled with bias, negative comments, allegations and somewhat bigoted. The introduction is largely one-sided. Not enough citations. No mention of laws regarding international marriage brokerage in other countries. The history section is shockingly underdeveloped. For example: In 1619, when the Jamestown Colony had a need for more women, the Virginia Company of London sent shipments of mail-order brides from England in return for tobacco. More information can be found in Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies by Julia Spruill and other books about women in the Jamestown colony. There are similar history books about international marriage brokerage around the world including Europe, Australia, Japan, China, South America and so on as well. Particularly the Victorian-era marriage industry in western countries. I'm frustrated, because I don't have the skills to rewrite this entry (I'm still struggling to understand Wikipedia's editorial policies and how some editing functions work). I hope this entry will be flagged for the attention of a skilled Wikipedia editor who would be willing to spend time rewriting and editing this. Thank you. 0zero9nine (talk) 05:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)