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::104.32.193.6, this is not an article on a pop culture term. It's an article on a scholarly topic that has been researched and defined within the field of sociology. So, '''''this''''' article requires a higher level of sources than opinion stories on websites. Now, only Peg Tyre's article in Politico refers to the scholarly definition of "moral panic": the other authors just use the term. Their articles do nothing to further the section except demonstrating that a person has used the term to describe the situation, which is something this article doesn't need since you have Tyre's article doing a proper job of it. So, I would use Tyre's article as a source, and maybe try to flesh out the section a bit based on her article. I'd agree though that you're not going to see this show up in social science papers for a while, at least until discussion around the topic becomes less emotional and political. [[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]] ([[User talk:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|talk]]) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
::104.32.193.6, this is not an article on a pop culture term. It's an article on a scholarly topic that has been researched and defined within the field of sociology. So, '''''this''''' article requires a higher level of sources than opinion stories on websites. Now, only Peg Tyre's article in Politico refers to the scholarly definition of "moral panic": the other authors just use the term. Their articles do nothing to further the section except demonstrating that a person has used the term to describe the situation, which is something this article doesn't need since you have Tyre's article doing a proper job of it. So, I would use Tyre's article as a source, and maybe try to flesh out the section a bit based on her article. I'd agree though that you're not going to see this show up in social science papers for a while, at least until discussion around the topic becomes less emotional and political. [[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]] ([[User talk:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|talk]]) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
:::'''@[[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]]:''' How can this "higher standard" be communicated to the editors of ''scholarly subject'' articles? Is there a template and policy/guideline that could be placed at the top? [[Special:Contributions/104.32.193.6|104.32.193.6]] ([[User talk:104.32.193.6|talk]]) 22:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
:::'''@[[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]]:''' How can this "higher standard" be communicated to the editors of ''scholarly subject'' articles? Is there a template and policy/guideline that could be placed at the top? [[Special:Contributions/104.32.193.6|104.32.193.6]] ([[User talk:104.32.193.6|talk]]) 22:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
:::As an FYI, this concept of variant standards is of serious concern to me. Again, I am fine that such variants exist, but I think it important that editors know of these variances on specific articles ''before'' they waste their time adding sources that will ultimately be rejected because of special requirements for sources. To this end I have started a discussion on that very concept at the Village Pump. This is not in any way a criticism of this article or the good work being done here, just an inquiry into WP:RS standards policies in general for which this article has highlighted a specific issue that I was unaware of before. [[Special:Contributions/104.32.193.6|104.32.193.6]] ([[User talk:104.32.193.6|talk]]) 05:42, 13 April 2015 (UTC)
:::As an FYI, this concept of variant standards is of serious concern to me. Again, I am fine that such variants exist, but I think it important that editors know of these variances on specific articles ''before'' they waste their time adding sources that will ultimately be rejected because of special requirements for sources. To this end I have started a discussion on that very concept at the [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#How_to_inform_editors_of_a_variance_in_WP:RS_standards.3F|Village Pump]]. This is not in any way a criticism of this article or the good work being done here, just an inquiry into WP:RS standards policies in general for which this article has highlighted a specific issue that I was unaware of before. [[Special:Contributions/104.32.193.6|104.32.193.6]] ([[User talk:104.32.193.6|talk]]) 05:42, 13 April 2015 (UTC)


::Oh and tangentially, as a Canadian, let me say that National Post does '''''not''''' have significant journalistic credentials: it used to be the propaganda rag of Conrad Black and used to be given away for free. An opinion piece from National Post is only slightly more journalistic than an opinion piece from the Toronto Sun or WorldNetDaily. [[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]] ([[User talk:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|talk]]) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
::Oh and tangentially, as a Canadian, let me say that National Post does '''''not''''' have significant journalistic credentials: it used to be the propaganda rag of Conrad Black and used to be given away for free. An opinion piece from National Post is only slightly more journalistic than an opinion piece from the Toronto Sun or WorldNetDaily. [[User:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|AllGloryToTheHypnotoad]] ([[User talk:AllGloryToTheHypnotoad|talk]]) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:46, 13 April 2015

Examples section (again)

In the past this section has suffered from wiki-bloat, with many people adding their favourite idea of a moral panic. What resulted was a compendium of original research. After some discussion on this page, it was decided to use narrative, rather than list, style and to request, in a commented out note, that editors ensure that examples of "moral panic" are supported by reliable sources. That solved the problem, at least for awhile. Now the section has again accumulated a number of examples that do not seem to be supported by reliable sources.

I've gone through the section, verifying citations. Here a tally:

  • White slavery and sex trafficking - citations do not support moral panic related to white slavery, only the paragraph on "sex trafficking" is supported by reliable sources.
  • 1920s film industry - citations do not support moral panic
  • 1950s comic book industry - source given is Goode and Ben-Yehuda. These authors specifically refer to this phenomenon as a "moral crusade" and distinguish it from a moral panic.
  • War on Terror - no sources given
  • Cartoon Crisis - no sources given
  • Obesity - one source states: "The exponential increase in mass media attention to obesity in the US and abroad seems to have many of the elements of what social scientists call a ‘moral panic’." The author discusses the question of whether it is a moral panic vs. a health crisis and doesn't reach a conclusion.

Here's what I am proposing to do about the foregoing:

  1. Remove paragraphs on white slavery until specific sources can be presented confirming this as a moral panic.
  2. Retain the paragraph on sex trafficking. It is short, so should, perhaps, be combined into another section.
  3. Remove sections on "1920s film industry," "1950s comic book industry," "war on terror" and "cartoon crisis." If someone can find reliable sources to support any of these, lets discuss.
  4. Retain the section on obesity but rewrite it to represent what the sources say.

I've boldly made the changes and also combined short sections and expanded the section on crime in Japan to refer to crime rates generally and give Japan as an example. If anyone disagrees, let's avoid an edit war and discuss these changes here. Sunray (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is prime real estate for original research. Lists are especially problematic.Kcchief915 (talk) 20:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What the lad above says. In its current form (May 2011) it starts Ok, then quickly wanders off into puerile discussions of backwards recording and fat people. I can't be arsed to try and fix it though, seeing as all that rubbish keeps creeping back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.86.143 (talk) 13:25, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Western response to 9/11 in the "Pogroms, purges and witch-hunts" section

I am not sure why the section the sentence "Various actions in Western countries following the September 11 attacks ... have been referred to as moral panics" is in the "Pogroms, purges and witch-hunts"? It seems hardly relevant to that section. In addition, I am not sure that the source is very reliable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.142.8.48 (talk) 22:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Sexting?

Seems to me it should be in examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.67.113.65 (talk) 20:44, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comic books?

An editor added this material, which was then reverted:

In the 1950s, a well-respected psychiatrist Frederic Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent, a book which argued that comics were dangerous to children and a major cause of juvenile crime. This led to a national outrage, resulting in laws, ordinances, censoring, banning and mass burnings against comic books and later to the Comics Code Authority.[1] Frederic Wertham further suggested that Batman and Robin were gay partners and that Wonder Woman was a lesbian who had a bondage subtext.[2]

  1. ^ Coville, Jamie. "Seduction of the Innocents and the Attack on Comic Books". Retrieved 9 April 2011.
  2. ^ Wertham, Fredric (1954) Seduction of the Innocent., p. 192, 234-235, Reinhart & Company, Inc.

I'm not saying that this material belongs, but I'm not sure that it doesn't, either. From the Coville ref: quotes him as saying ""effects of these pulp-paper nightmares is that of a violent stimulant...hypodermic injection of sex and murder..." and then that "law makers were goaded and prodded into action, and many did their best to please and appease the angry torment which had been unleashed" and so forth. Not having investigated further, does this not describe a kind of moral panic type event? Willing to be instructed otherwise. Herostratus (talk) 17:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To my knowledge, the comic book mess was a moral panic. Pretty much addressed in the movie Comic Book Confidential, if I recall. I've never come across any journal articles to this effect, though. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 02:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It may have been a moral panic, though I've never come across a reliable source that documented that. I've removed the entry: The section has plenty of examples. If someone comes up with a RS, we can add it back in. Sunray (talk) 12:23, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, as I mentioned above, Goode and Ben-Yehuda (1994) discuss the comic book phenomenon as a "moral crusade" and distinguish it from a moral panic. Sunray (talk) 12:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Global Warming Neutrality

The statements (and sources) about Global Warming are extremely dubious Kuke (talk) 04:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. This is very much POV, and stimulated by a recent editorial in the WSJ whose lack of scientific value has been denounced even by sister publication Forbes. It should be removed ASAP. 70.81.18.28 (talk) 15:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah no kidding. This is not appropriate material and I removed it. Herostratus (talk) 18:32, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide a source for your assertion about the Forbes article. Also, please justify your statement that the scientists who wrote the WSJ article are unable to provide "scientific value." Until then, I will replace the deleted material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blicious (talkcontribs) 04:00, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the statement "some have said" is accurate sourced to the film referenced -- Bret Stephens explicitly compares global warming hysteria to moral panic, referencing the mad cow scare of the 1990s as another example. (Blicious (talk) 04:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC))[reply]

Since what you wrote is clearly POV, it will be removed. You putting it back in will only get you banned from editing this page. Here is a link to the Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/01/27/remarkable-editorial-bias-on-climate-science-at-the-wall-street-journal/ Here is an article about the economist cited in the WSJ who disagrees with how his work was interpreted in the editorial: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/scientists-challenging-climate-science-appear-to-flunk-climate-economics/ And finally here is the Met Office saying that David Rose's article (allegedly based on their research) is "entirely misleading" : http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/met-office-in-the-media-29-january-2012/ Please, stop using Wikipedia as your own personal propaganda outlet. Thanks. 70.81.18.28 (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the thing about a "moral panic" is that it's only a panic if it's unjustified to some extent. I don't think any sane and knowledgeable and fair-minded and disinterested person holds that global climate change isn't a serious problem (not counting trolls and persons being deliberately contrarian for effect), so I guess it doesn't belong here. Thinking about this some more, it seems there are situations that are the converse of moral panic -- things that people should "panic" about but mostly don't. The prospect of global thermonuclear war for instance. I guess there's no word for this and so no article... Herostratus (talk) 17:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with 70.81.18.28 and Herostratus. Sunray (talk) 23:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Homosexuality (org rel)

A better writer than I should consider an entry on Homosexuality, which, with its corollary subject, marriage law, has been engineered by the social order as the current moral panic to replace minorities, drug war, etc.

Also, perhaps there should be more information regarding the function of organized religion as pertains to creating or benefiting from the bolstering of moral panic. Tangverse (talk) 09:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dungeons & Dragons - removed text

I removed the following text as it does not seem to conform to the article's demand for disproportionate acts towards the group in question:

At various times in its history, Dungeons & Dragons (a fantasy role-playing game) has received negative publicity for alleged promotion of such practices as Satanism, witchcraft, suicide, pornography and murder. In the 1980s especially, some religious groups accused the game of encouraging interest in sorcery and the veneration of Demons.[1] Throughout the history of roleplaying games, many of these criticisms have been aimed specifically at Dungeons & Dragons, but touch on the genre of fantasy roleplaying games as a whole. It has been suggested that the recent drive to regulate video games is another instance of moral panic over the content of popular culture.[2][3][4] The industry response has been to create a self-regulatory ratings system similar to that used by the film industry.[5]

Narssarssuaq (talk) 16:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In my reading, we can see Dungeons and Dragons as an example of a moral panic, as there was a fairly widespread outcry against it from a significant section of US society, with parents actively forbidding their children from playing this game as a result. Couldn't that be seen as an disproportionate action? I will therefore restore this text so we can has this out. Perhaps we can work on clarifying the "disproportionality" section? Martijn Faassen (talk) 21:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, maybe. I don't remember any widespread outcry. Looking at the ref, it kind of looks like one person (Patricia Pulling) got on a hobbyhorse (understandably, since her son was dead and people in that situation are prone to looking for a reason that will make this make sense). It doesn't look to me like BADD made much of impression beyond a small circle of folks inclined to see Satan everywhere anyway. I don't recall D&D being excoriated for anything beyond nerdiness. The part beginning "It has been suggested..." is on entirely different matter and should not be intertwined with D&D I don't think... if all the material is kept separate paragraphs might be in order. Herostratus (talk) 00:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you grew up in a more enlightened part of the world. I saw a lot of moral panic about D&D in the early to late 1980s. And a glance at the Patricia Pulling article does seem to show strong similarities to SRA in her language - assertions of a large number of Satanists living in secret, fixation on the Necronomicon, and so on. It was a significant enough movement that TSR/WOTC sanitized AD&D for the second edition release. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 20:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I don't feel strongly about it, and you may well be right, but I'd like to see an actual magazine (or at least newspaper) article or something added as a ref... Herostratus (talk) 04:20, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that goes without saying.... AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 23:52, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hall Section

Stan Cohen

"Others have criticized Cohen's work stating that not all the folk devils expressed in his work are vulnerable or unfairly maligned."- This line does not have a source backing it. It appears to be an original research. Besides, it also seems to be the logical fallacy ad hominem to me, but I'm not sure on that one. Unfortunately I don't have the wiki knowhow to change this.(haha I do not know how to say it's sources are not cited wiki style) So I'll just leave this here. 173.22.14.84 (talk) 02:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK I tagged them. Herostratus (talk) 02:16, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Origins and Use

How can Jock Young be the person who first used this phrase it if Stanley Cohen was the guy who crated the word? This article doesn't make coherent sense to me. I think that Stan shouldn't be mentioned in the article until this section. Rather than being mentioned in the beginning summary of the term itself. This is my opinion of it btw. 173.22.14.84 (talk) 02:24, 6 November 2012 (UTC) (edit added signature sorry)[reply]

Conflict of interest and undue weight

Dubious

Part of the article mentions the "American" problem of mugging and its importation into the UK. This does not make any sense. Muggings happened in Victorian England and earlier. I don't know if the problem is with the source not knowing, or perhaps use of the term in a special way, or if there was some hysterical ignorant belief that muggings were allegedly never a UK problem and that those pesky Americans brought it over, or what. That part of the article needs to be clarified, because as it stands now it's very misleading. DreamGuy (talk) 15:01, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Going by memory here, but upon reading your comment I immediately thought of Cohen's book. It might be it's mentioned there as an early example of US press-generated "moral panics". Don't have a copy, but it's a place to look if anyone really wants to back up the statement. Though presenting "examples" of moral panics without the theoretical context and analysis should probably be banned from this article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:21, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In in Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order, Stuart Hall and his colleagues are not arguing that mugging was unknown in the UK prior to the middle of the 20th Century. Their thesis is that it was not regarded as a significant problem until this time. Suddenly, the British media began to cover mugging as a "new problem" imported from the US. This was portrayed as evidence of a rising crime problem. Hall et. al. argue that this was, in fact, a manufactured problem and a classic example of a moral panic. The authors are well aware that mugging is not something new to the UK. Their theory, has to do with the cultural production of "consent." They see moral panics in this light. Sunray (talk) 06:28, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Original research?

You can't write "The term first appears in the English language in The Quarterly Christian Spectator, a publication from 1830" since you don't know if it was the first or not. There is no way to exhaustively search all English literature. Actually the phrase was used in print even earlier: William Hayley, "The young widow; or the history of Cornelia Sedley", Dublin, 1789, vol. 1, page 68: "You have made us laugh at our own moral panic, as I may call it, concerning the continence of Edmund." You can argue whether this has a meaning which is related to that of the modern phrase, but the same argument can be had over the 1830s sources, diving dangerously into original research. Zerotalk 02:23, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, agreed. My first thought was that this material definitely does not belong in the lead. It might be part of the section on "Use of the term," but would need to be re-written to avoid it being original research. Sunray (talk) 00:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural revolution

The cultural revolution was political theatre, not a moral panic. The article linked to did not contain the text quoted and did not refer to any moral panics. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 11:30, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you believe the Cultural revolution was "political theatre" and the Red Scare and antisemitic pogroms were not?Jimjilin (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/08/26/willy.column/index.html
Quote: Witch hunts galore. In the early phase of the Cultural Revolution, Mao said he would lock up all "cow gods and snake demons," earthy parlance for sinister, plotting crooks.
Link: http://www.agner.org/cultsel/chapt8/
Quote: Bergesen mentions as examples of political witch-hunts the purges during the chinese cultural revolution, the terror regime during the french revolution, the stalinist show trials, and McCarthy's persecution of communists in the USA. In accordance with this theory, Bergesen finds that witch-hunts are most common in one-party states where the ideology is most immanent in everyday life.Jimjilin (talk) 15:29, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The CNN article doens't use the term "moral panic", a "witch hunt" isn't the same thing as a moral panic.
The second link isn't a reliable source, it appears to be a personal webpage. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 23:27, 21 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Cultural Revolution wasn't a moral panic: there were no moral entrepreneurs campaigning against a new threat to an established conservative set of moral values, and the media wasn't manufacturing belief in something patently false in order to increase readership. Without those, all you have is an old-fashioned totalitarian propaganda campaign. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 22:41, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm also a little skeptical of presenting the Cultural Revolution as a moral panic. It depends on what sources say though, of course, and not what I think.
Certainly, though, "witch hunt" and "moral panic" are related, or can be. There can be witch hunts that aren't moral panics -- for example, the Benghazi thing. That's entirely a political witch hunt (in the eyes of some) but not really something that has engaged the population. However, it is possible for witch hunts that are started from the top as political exercises to evolve to moral panics in the population -- the Red Scare might be an example of this. So might the Cultural Revolution (I don't know, and am not well versed in the subject). It's difficult to get info on this since China was very closed off at the time and it's hard to say what reflects the actual feelings of Joe Average Chinese Person as opposed to what they felt bound to say to fit in or survive. But historians have studied the subject, and if Joe Average Chinese Person really was looking askance at his neighbors for signs of treason and so forth, and feeling genuine fear about this, and not just to curry favor with the authorities, would that not constitute a moral panic?
The Cultural Revolution was very big thing, and a complicated thing. I wouldn't be surprised to find strong elements of moral panic there, but at the same time mixed in were factional power struggles at the top and much else. So if we want to bring it into the mix here, we need to do it some way where we can expand on it, a few sentences at least (sourced of course) showing how historians see it as similar to, and different from, other moral panics. A short subsection or a paragraph somewhere. Certainly we do not want to just include it in a list, i. e. "examples of moral panics include White Slavery and yadda yadda and the Cultural Revolution". That is not a service to reader in understanding what we are trying to get at here. Herostratus (talk) 03:11, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly I would just leave it out entirely, unless there is already a demonstrated consensus within the scholarly community that the cultural revolution was a moral panic. After all, scholarly consensus guides the rest of this article. WP:SYNTH, WP:NOR. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:13, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another satirization example

Wouldn't "Gingerbread" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer also be a prime example?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gingerbread_%28Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer%29

Campus rape

reliable source standards

I reverted the addition of a section about campus rape being a moral panic. It cited only two opinions columns, which seems far from sufficient for such a contentious topic. The other sections (those which I would consider defensible, anyway) are sourced to academic papers/research and otherwise more reliable sources than an opinion column. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@User:Rhododendrites: Any objection to these sources?
Respectfully Rhododendrites, rather than removing the section a simple {{Refimprove section}} tag would have been a much better editorial choice. While the provided sources were definitely inadequate it would have been trivial to find that there are plenty of good sources for the material. The above were found with the following searches in about 5 seconds:
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs· FENS · JSTOR · TWL
In fact, there are more than enough WP:RS to create a stand alone article on this precise topic, not to mention the WP article mentioned in the section you removed. I am therefor respectfully reverting your removal of the section (out of respect for the original IP's good faith edits) and adding in the appropriate tags as described above. 104.32.193.6 (talk) 16:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The sources seem numerous enough and their publishers are significant enough (which is not the say they are reliable sources individually) that I don't have a problem leaving it alone for now. Why didn't you add these to the article rather than just reverting and adding a tag? When editing contentious topics in particular (but really anywhere), the burden is on the one(s) who want to include something to show that it's due weight to include, cites reliable sources, etc. Sourcing matters a lot for contentious topics as people add poorly sourced POV material all the time. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:29, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I will note that the sources still are pretty poor. Opinion columns, political blogs, news stories, etc. rather than peer-reviewed journals and such. Compare to, for example, satanic ritual abuse. I'm quite dubious but will wait for other voices to get involved. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:31, 14 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Respectfully I have to ask if you are editing/operating with something other than the official WP standards? Your description of the sources as "pretty poor" flies in the face of the policies and guidelines of WP and also the facts of the articles referenced. Every one of those five references above (excluding the sub-referenced blog which was only included as a source-of-more-sources) come from mainstream publications with legitimate and significant journalistic credentials. Most of the authors likewise have substantial journalistic credentials and some have respectable academic credentials as well. While "peer-reviewed journals" are certainly nice to have as sources that is not the standard that WP requires. Dismissing "news stories" as being poor sources is certainly not the WP way. 104.32.193.6 (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I added in some more sources. It is too early for this issue to rely on social science papers. Propose reverting the tag for more source material?--Tosfot (talk) 19:13, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding more sources. I removed the tag. The issue now is that we only have a single line section with a long list of sources. Care to take a stab at building it out based on what you've seen in the sources? No obligation, of course. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:50, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
104.32.193.6, this is not an article on a pop culture term. It's an article on a scholarly topic that has been researched and defined within the field of sociology. So, this article requires a higher level of sources than opinion stories on websites. Now, only Peg Tyre's article in Politico refers to the scholarly definition of "moral panic": the other authors just use the term. Their articles do nothing to further the section except demonstrating that a person has used the term to describe the situation, which is something this article doesn't need since you have Tyre's article doing a proper job of it. So, I would use Tyre's article as a source, and maybe try to flesh out the section a bit based on her article. I'd agree though that you're not going to see this show up in social science papers for a while, at least until discussion around the topic becomes less emotional and political. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@AllGloryToTheHypnotoad: How can this "higher standard" be communicated to the editors of scholarly subject articles? Is there a template and policy/guideline that could be placed at the top? 104.32.193.6 (talk) 22:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As an FYI, this concept of variant standards is of serious concern to me. Again, I am fine that such variants exist, but I think it important that editors know of these variances on specific articles before they waste their time adding sources that will ultimately be rejected because of special requirements for sources. To this end I have started a discussion on that very concept at the Village Pump. This is not in any way a criticism of this article or the good work being done here, just an inquiry into WP:RS standards policies in general for which this article has highlighted a specific issue that I was unaware of before. 104.32.193.6 (talk) 05:42, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh and tangentially, as a Canadian, let me say that National Post does not have significant journalistic credentials: it used to be the propaganda rag of Conrad Black and used to be given away for free. An opinion piece from National Post is only slightly more journalistic than an opinion piece from the Toronto Sun or WorldNetDaily. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:17, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know the reliability factor (or lack thereof) for that particular newspaper. It makes me shudder when I hear people talking about the "informative" articles they read on WND! :P

why we tag text

As for why I didn't "add these [sources] to the article rather than just reverting and adding a tag?" the answer is simple: I am not a competent subject matter expert on this topic. Just because I can find the sources does not make me qualified to write the article. I can find numerous sources for any number of subjects but you would not want me to write articles about advanced calculus, Asian history, or steamy romance novels. I know nothing about these topics and would be unqualified to determine the due weight of what was good to include and what was fluff or cruft or fringe.

I reverted because the material was fixable. Five seconds of research showed it was fixable. The material should never have been removed, it should have been left in place and tagged and that is effectively what I did. I also reverted because removing the material without discussion may have discouraged a new editor. WP is seriously hurting for new quality editors and we all need to avoid being accidentally bite-y. The IP contrib history (or lack thereof) suggests that the editor involved may have been a newbie and removing their good-faith contribution without discussion could certainly be viewed as an unintended "go away you incompetent noob" type signal. No effort was made to help that editor improve the article. No effort was made to help that editor to improve themselves as WP editors. Hopefully they will be back.

WP has many guidelines on dealing with poorly sourced material but at the heart of every single policy & procedure is the idea that we are attempting to build an encyclopedia. One can only build something by adding material, not removing it. Yes, sometimes bad materials have to be removed. We certainly want good quality materials and we want them properly installed. But the expected norm of behavior at WP is to tag it and wait to see if other editors who are familiar with the material can improve the article.

THAT IS WHY WE HAVE TAGS! It totally amazes me how often people miss this one ultra-obvious fact: TAGS EXIST TO ALLOW OTHERS TO FIX PROBLEMS. IF it was expected of editors to personally correct every article flaw they see WP would not need or have tags. IF it was expected of editors to immediately remove poorly sourced material we would not need or have tags. Tags exist to give others notice and time to fix problems. If, after a reasonable amount of time has passed, no one does so then the materials can and should be removed. Even Speedy Deletion has a tag-&-wait approach, albeit a very short wait typically.

The major exception to this tag-&-wait approach is for contentious material about living persons, not just any contentious material. This exception is because WP can not and will not tolerate any potentially libelous text being published for any length of time. For the rest of the problems editors should tag them and then allow time for others to fix the problems instead of removing the material without discussion. 104.32.193.6 (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Please understand that in this case, what you have is an article on a recognized academic topic of study, with several editors familiar with the academic work who follow and protect the article. Also, since you're familiar with Wikipedia, you know that some articles can easily spiral out of control if not actively patrolled, especially if they're on hot-button topics. Rest assured that the issue of including "campus rape" as a subject within the article is now a live option for the people following this article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:57, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]