Talk:Rind et al. controversy

redaction of "The Study's Findings in Brief" section

I reverted the addition of this section, for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the article is not really about the study per se. I think that years ago the article was named "Rind et al (1998)" or something, but it was decided (rightly, I'd say) that the study itself is not particularly notable. It was just a paper in a journal, not a especially notable journal such as Nature or whtever, and just a meta-study at that, a kind of review of existing literature.

What is (slightly) notable is that it became controversial and there was some stuff written and said about the study. Fine, but drilling down in great depth on the study itself in probably not really called for. We can talk about including a little more info if it seems helpful, though. Also, the material itself is not really ideal, with some speculation on Rind et al's motivations, and is basically an unsourced analysis of the paper, which may be correct in part but is unsourced, and also seems a little bit more on the cheerleady side than I'd like to see ("The researchers were criticized for...suggesting that [other] researchers use more scientifically valid definitions of CSA" for instance), which brings me to the second point.

There's the meta-issue of, this article and this subject has a history here, and we want to be real careful here, and there are some red flags. These were the editors first edits here, and this is a pretty fraught subject, and so that sets off a little buzzer in my head. (Actually, the editor had one previous edit, in 2009, and it was to the article Adult where he added a quite long unsourced essay the gist of which that persons who have begun puberty are adults and that other uses of the term are mistakes, which is probably not true and which sets off another little buzzer in my head.) The editor's name is "Truthinwriting", and given the subject matter this sets off another little buzzer in my head. I've covered this subject a long time here and my experience is that, when we have a user with a username with with Truth or Freedom or so forth in it, on this subject, it just doesn't usually end well. So not to say there's anything wrong with any of this, but that's a couple buzzers too many, and I think this probably a path we don't want to be going down. Herostratus (talk) 06:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Herostratus,

I assume I should write to the broader community of readers, rather than addressing you directly. Please pardon my writing style if this is not culturally correct, and let me know so I can adjust my writing style for future posts/responses.

Herostratus removed/reverted the section I added titled "The Study's Findings in Brief". Here I go over Herostratus' objections and concerns, and request that the section be put back as written. I'll number, summarize, and address the concerns one-by-one as well as address a few comments Herostratus made that are not directly related to editing the page, but are relevant to understanding the Rind et al. study and the controversy.

Concern #1: The section may not be needed since the topic of the page is the controversy rather than the findings; Herostratus wrote "drilling down in great depth on the study itself is probably not really called for".

Response to Concern #1: I agree that this page should focus on the controversy rather than the study's findings, however, I do not believe one can objectively understand the controversy without a basic understanding of the study's findings. That is why I added this section. To keep it short, I tried to limit myself to about 500 words (I think it was 499 according to Microsoft). To keep it highly relevant to the page, I focused on facts that appear to be highly relevant to the controversy/criticisms as presented on the page. I did not go into great detail about the study or the hundreds (?) of analyses presented in it. I still believe a brief summary is needed if the page is to provide readers with unbiased information, and I believe my summary is a good, objective contribution.

Aside #1: Although not of great editing relevance, Herostratus stated the Rind et al. study "...was just a paper in a journal, not a especially notable journal such as Nature or whatever...".

Response: Actually, it was published in "Psychological Bulletin", which I believe is generally very highly regarded among psychologists. I have heard (but have no citation or confirmation) that it was tied for the most respected journal in the field of psychology (the other top one being "The Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology", if I remember correctly). Indeed, I doubt there would have been much controversy if the authors had published in a lesser journal. But this is not relevant to the edit, just an FYI.

Aside #2: Herostratus also stated "and just a meta-study at that,..."

Actually, a properly conducted meta-analysis is far more important in science than any single primary study on the same topic. Its findings will be broader, more informative, and much more likely to be accurate than any individual study. That is why meta-analyses are so important. Although I do not think my credentials should be used as proof that I am correct, let me mention that I am a full professor and have taught both introductory research methods and statistics. We can talk more about the power and import of meta-analysis, but it does not seem relevant to the edits or the page, hence I'll stop here for now.

Concern #2: Herostratus wrote that the section I added "is not really ideal, with some speculation on Rind et al's motivations, and is basically an unsourced analysis of the paper...".

Response to Concern #2: I'm not certain what is meant by "unsourced", but I will proceed under the assumption that Herostratus means I did not provide enough citations. If that is the case, then I can add them. Perhaps my sense of what needs to be cited and what does not, differs from the Wikipedia community. Most of the facts I presented come from the Rind et al. report itself, which was cited. But if adding references with specific pages references is desired, I can certainly try to do so. However, although I played in the sandbox, I don't see how one goes about adding the same basic citation (e.g., Rind et al.) with a specific page reference. Can someone point me to that information? If not, I can just put the page references in parentheses as part of the main text itself. Regarding Herostratus' assertion that I speculated on Rind et al.'s motivations, I don't see anywhere that I did that. For example, I wrote "The researchers conducted the college meta-analysis in part because the college studies provided data regarding causality which was lacking in the national studies." If that is what Herostratus is referring to, perhaps the problem is that I need to keep re-citing the Rind et al. study with specific page references. That information comes from page 25 (bottom right paragraph). Please advise on what level of citation detail is desired in these pages, and technically how to best insert that information.

Concern #3: Herostratus thought that some of my writing seemed to be "a little bit more on the cheerleady side..." and gave a partial quotation of one sentence I wrote.

Response to Concern #3: The sentence in question merely presented two facts, without opinion or, I believe, cheering, hence I don't think it needs to be removed or modified. The facts were (1) that Rind et al. were criticized for reporting the small findings & (2) that Rind et al. were criticized for suggesting that researchers use more scientifically valid definitions of CSA. The sentence I wrote was: "The researchers were criticized for reporting the small findings and were additionally criticized for suggesting that researchers use more scientifically valid definitions of CSA." I don't see any cheerleading there, and believe it presents relevant facts to understanding the type of controversy that occurred. I could expand upon that sentence, but I wanted to keep the section brief.

Concern and Response #4: Herostratus referred to there being a history about this page, but I am not familiar with it and it does not seem to display on this Discussion page which only has about 3 posts. Herostratus correctly points out that I have little experience with Wiki editing, but I don't see how that is relevant (feel free to educate me!). Herostratus is concerned about my user name, but I wanted something meaningful and that's what I chose, again, it's not relevant to editing the page.

I request guidance on the level of detail wanted in citations, and that the section be put back. If someone wants to go to the trouble of putting it back then editing it to include "[citation needed]" everywhere one is desired, I will try to monitor the page and add the citations within a few days. I'm just worried that it will be hard to read the page if every line has a citation, and almost all of them are to the same source (the Rind et al. study). Truthinwriting (talk) 15:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for responding Truthinwriting. Yes this is right place to discuss this. I will read and address all your remarks as soon as possible, there's a lot there so it might be a couple of days (of course, as goes without saying, other editors are encouraged to participate also). I reformatted your post so as to keep it all in the same section. Herostratus (talk) 18:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I may be able to address a few of these, but not all necessarily. I was watching these edits as they happened, and admitted they made me nervous in the same way as Herostratus mentioned. I refrained from acting as I was not sure what I wanted to say and I wanted to see how they would play out.

What I can hopefully do is fill TruthinWriting in on a few things. First is a general idea about citations. The requirement for citations actually varies and has to do with the relative controversiality of an article and also with specific assertions. For example Sesame Street has very few citations in its introduction section, because none of it is in dispute and it's all rather straight forward. Article about a high profile politician on the other hand tends to have every sentence in the entire article cited. This article in particular we are talking about is about a controversy, making it subject to a fairly rigorous policy of citations. While I cannot address a lot of the specifics of your responses at this time, it is possible to cite the same source multiple times using page numbers. How this is done is the main bibliographic source is noted at the bottom of the article , and each individual cite is placed after the appropriate sentence with a ref indicate the last name, title, and page number. For an example of this style, see Rodney King and note how Lou Cannon's book Official Negligence is cited in that article.

Another thing I can fill you in on is the "history" Herostratus is talking about. It is not necessarily specific to this article, but was an issue with all articles related to the sexual abuse of children. At one point in Wikipedia's history, there were editors who were actual pedophiles. This in and of itself was not an issue, but rather the behavior of these editors. They attempted to use Wikipedia as propaganda platform, editing articles in a biased manner in order to further their views and present them as "fact" and prevailing scientific opinion on this encyclopedia. It was a severe test of Wikipedia's grand philosophies of non-censorship and being "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." Ultimately though, this behavior became out of control, with regular editors have little to no power to combat these fringe views taking over articles as though they were the majority. So the policy changed. Users who were pedophiles were banned permanently. Some of them were noticed by the FBI, who tracked down and arrested a few (some were wanted criminals, others because they had child pornography). It's been quiet now for a few years. Why is this relevant here? As the article mentions, Rind et al is a very popular study among pedophiles. It is frequently quoted by them as "proof" doing sex acts to little children is ok (yes I know that isn't what Rind says, but that is how they interpret it). They even used it in legal defenses for a time so they could achieve leniency by minimizing the harm they caused. Any why is this relevant now? Well, every so often, a pedophile user comes on here and starts making subtle changes, all the while pretending they're just adding scientific information and swearing up and down that they are not trying to push an agenda. There's a handful of us users (myself and Herostratus included) who have been here since those old times, and we know all the warning signs; little tiny red flags we've seen so many times. Sometimes it's a false alarm. That's why I didn't do anything with your edits. But when a user crosses a certain line, we know it.Legitimus (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I would have had the same "ref flag" reaction as Herostratus and Legitimus, and they've summed up why. That said, I can understand what Truthinwriting is saying about reporting the study in part if we are going to have criticism on it. Truthinwriting's edits to the Adult article about, in the past, adulthood primarily being determined by the start of puberty and people usually moving from the status of child directly to the status of adult (skipping the socially-constructed stage of adolescence), isn't "off" (although there seems to have been some type of recognized in-between stage for most cultures for many years). We (myself and others) are discussing that now at Talk:Adolescence#Further changes after merge. But he (I assume Truthinwriting is a "he") should have added a source for it. I added a source for it back in February, though not the best, which was taken from the Adolescence article.

Truthinwriting, for what Herostratus means about "unsourced," see WP:Sourcing. And for how to go about sourcing, see WP:Citing sources. Flyer22 (talk) 04:40, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Truthinwriting, responding to some of your points. The archived talk page posts can be accessed by clicking the "1" where it says "Archives: 1" in the box at the top of this page.

Regarding point #1, that the article, if it's to exist, ought to describe the study in more detail. This is arguable but reasonable. The problem is, how to do this? We can't put in our own (yours, or mine, or any other editor's) take on the paper. It'd have to be from notable, reliable, and neutral expert, using short quotations or text that very closely tracks their statements. Even then there's the problem of possible cherry-picking of material, and that's assuming that we can agree that a given source is a notable, reliable, and neutral expert. All in all I'd prefer keeping it as succinct as possible, and letting readers interested in deep details of what's in the paper read the paper itself.

Re Aside #1, yes, I understand that Psychological Bulletin is highly notable in its field. What I meant was, even most full-length books, scholarly or not, don't qualify as being notable enough to have Wikipedia articles. We generally don't have Wikipedia articles on individual articles that appear in a scholarly journal, even ones that are more notable than Psychological Bulletin (such as Nature etc.), and very few qualify as being notable enough. Re Aside #2, OK, I stand corrected regarding the value of meta-studies.

Re Concern #2, right, by sources I mean citations, but as I said above it's kind of fraught how, exactly, these are to be used. For one thing, for each statement -- that is, for each statement describing some passage or element of the paper -- I'd want to be assured that it was incontrovertible and there weren't alternative ways of describing that passage or element anywhere, from good sources. This is pretty hard to show absent exhaustive research, which I'm not sure who we could get to do that. I get that "Most of the facts I presented come from the Rind et al. report itself", but again there is also the issue of interpretation in presentation, possible, cherry-picking, and so forth.

Re Concern #3, well, what I was thinking was, if Rind et al said, in the paper, something to effect of "We suggest that, in future, critics of our methodology use scientifically valid definitions..." I'm not an academic, but that seems pretty inflammatory for a academic paper. But if there's a direct quote, I guess it is what it is. But if it's just you using the term "scientifically valid" as an interpretation of what Rind et al said, that's a huge problem. Also, did Rind et al really say "Western public"? I wonder why they'd do that, are there likely notably different reactions to this material in China? Again, if these are your words, it's a problem -- "Western public" is actually a red-flag term, as it's often used by editors implicitly postulating and appealing to a Golden Age-type "otherwhere/otherwhen" to contrast to an (implicitly benighted) here-and-now. So, if "scientifically valid" and "Western public" are direct quotes from Rind et al, OK, but if not, we're probably done here. Are they?

Re Concern #4, right, I pointed you to the talk page archive, although that's not a complete picture as discussions about the use or misuse of the study are scattered throughout a number of different article talk pages (many now also archived). And right, there's nothing wrong with your username, it's fine, I didn't mean to demean it, it's just, well... see WP:Truth (or WP:TRUTH if you don't mind sophomoric sarcasm), I'm just saying, and basing this on my experience, particularly on this subject. Cheers, Herostratus (talk) 05:31, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Response to Truthwriting and the redaction of his first post to this topic.

This is my first post to Wikipedia.

I liked your new section to this topic entitled "The Study's Findings in Brief." I also very much liked, and agreed with, your other various small improvements to the topic, made about the same time.

Herostratus asserts that "the [Rind] study itself is not particularly notable. It was just a paper in a journal, not a especially notable journal such asNature or whatever, and just a meta-study at that, a kind of review of existing literature." "Drilling down in great depth on the study itself in probably not really called for." This remarkable shift in attitude from shock and condemnation to "not particularly notable" is classic in Thomas S. Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolution.

IMHO, the mathematics in the Rind et al. meta-analysis are brilliant, and the results of the mathematical calculations of both the original study and the 2005 Ulrich replication are startling. Not only is this Wikipedia topic about the controversy, but it perpetuates and recreates the controversy, as seen in the discussions here and in the archives -- even 13 years after the article's publication. It is better, in my humble opinion, to get the results stated in simple mathematical terms, take care not to overreach, and make clear the concepts of averages and normal distribution.

I was appalled that everything that you contributed to this topic was summarily removed, in apparent violation of spirit of the Wikipedia policy to be welcoming to new users. I appreciate how polite and cooperative you remain after this. I guess you really want to contribute to this.

I read the archives for this topic. Over the years, a number of editors asked for a summary of the Rind et al. results, something like yours. Take a look at the Archive. Like other editors before, you saw the need for a summary, but you also contributed one. Thank you very much for your contribution.

By the way, how you might find the Archive: Near the top of the Discussion page, there is a long rectangular search box. Right above that search box there is the word "Archive," in small type, with a number "1" to the right of it. Mouse click on the "1", and you have all the discussion from the past years. Some of the posters who have made contributions to this topic have then been banned, but the reasons for being banned were not documented. There are a number of unsettled matters for discussion in the Archives.

IMHO that TALK material contributed to improve this topic. Let a consensus develop about how brief or how long the summary of Rind's findings might be.

I just now see the last Herostratus response, as I want to post this. I feel a lot better about his response now.

Re: the first part of Concern # 3: To Herostratus: This business is not my strength, but I will quickly add this. The issue of the construct validity of CSA is well developed in the Rind article, and in later discussions of the controversy they wrote. This recommendation to improve the construct validity of CSA came after the study was finished, as a result of a request from one of the paper's peer reviewers. Not everyone has had college courses in statistics and social science research methods, so the language used may be strange. The word "validity" has a specific meaning in science and may have predictive qualities. One problem might be with the public's perception of these ideas when one translates the mathematical outcomes into English. Radvo (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I would like to take a moment to remind all users on this thread that "sock-puppeting" is expressly prohibited. Registering and posting under more than one username on the same page, or registering a new name when a previously one has been banned, is not permitted on any part of Wikipedia. See link for more details. Be advised administrators do have the ability to trace usernames using IP address and other methods in the course of investigating sock-puppet usage. In addition, so called "meat-puppet" behavior (the intentional recruiting of new users to join in-progress discussions) is also prohibited.Legitimus (talk) 13:12, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Just a note re "the reasons for being banned were not documented". I think it goes something like this. If an editor falls into either of the categories ""pedophile" or "sex-with-children normalization advocate", they will be summarily banned with no discussion or appeal. There are various reasons for this (good reasons in my opinion), some political, some moral, and some functional (that is, to facilitate the functioning of the project). An editor's membership in these categories may be determined by any method, including self-avowal, attachment of an account to a known person with these qualities in real life, or analysis of editing patterns. This is entirely a Star Chamber-type process and necessarily so, partly to avoid possible libel issues, but also for other reasons. Hope this clarifies. Herostratus (talk) 16:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification of the reasons for former editors being banned from this topic. As noted before, I researched a number of former editors to this topic, and noticed quite a number had been banished, and I was wondering the reasons. "Advocacy of normalization" is not specifically forbidden/mentioned in the recent revision of the Wikipedia Child Protection Policy. So may I assume that forbidding "sex-with-children normalization advocacy" is something you or the Pedophilia Article Watch added unofficially to this policy. I assume "sex-with-children normalization advocacy" is political advocacy you have no tolerance for here. Would you care to provide a definition, and some examples of what might get an editor banned? I assume from Legitimus' post that sock puppeting and meat puppeting were also a problem, and might merit banishing, too. One way people learn the rules is to observe other people being specifically cited and publicly punished for violating the rules. Open punishment has a desirable deterrent effect on others. If the banning is done in "Star Chambers", then fairness requires that editors should be informed in advance about what the Wikipedia rules are and the consequences for violating them. I appreciate Legitimus's post about sock puppeting, as this raises our consciousness. I can appreciate this rule, and would not like the old timers here to break that rule and "gang up" on me. I am joking. It's good to have the rules in writing in these Talk pages, and how the rules may be enforced differently by different administrators. I like to think that if editors know what the rules are, most will chose to live within them. Several editors were banned here over a handful of years. I wonder if maybe the banned editors did not know the rules in advance. If I have the time and interest, I may put all of these rules together some day for another TALK section: === What are the rules for editors here? ===.

It's like this: If I have racist or bullying thoughts or attitudes, we don't have rules against "thought crimes;" and they are hard to enforce. It is good to know that I may not express those thoughts or attitudes even once, if they are rules, because I might be banned as punishment. In Stalinist Russia, a comrade who said, "I love capitalism, and I am a capitalist." would quickly learn she should not have said that. And those who observed the punishment would learn that as well. That is an integration experience; and editors can help each other to behave within the stated rules over time. I don't have a big problem with reasonable and well-reasoned rules, and would encourage all editors to follow them faithfully.

Something else now: Regarding a brief statement that summarizes the 1998 Rind at al. report: Dr Rind et al. originally wrote for academic peers. Years later he wanted the public to understand what he had shared with his peers, too, and in simple language they could understand. He proposed a one sentence summary that went something like this: Rind et al. (1998) found that 3 out of every 100 individuals in a CSA population had clinically significant problems (compared to 2 out of every 100 in a general population). This is found in Rind and Tromovitch (2007). "National Samples, Sexual Abuse in Childhood, and Adjustment in Adulthood: A Commentary on Najman, Dunne, Purdie, Boyle, and Coxeter (2005)," Archives of Sexual Behavior, 36, 101-106. The families of CSA persons, on average, tend to have more problems, and problem families, in turn, may cause additional clinically significant problems for the child. So there is this confounding family variable, that may make the two groups (the CSA and general population group) almost similar in clinically significant problems. This summary sentence by Rind was discussed and rejected on the TALK page here in 2008. It's item # 20, "Odd reference" in Archive 1. I ask all editors to reconsider the value of Rind's short summary. You don't have to believe it's true, only that Dr. Rind claims this is one way to succinctly summarize the result of his 1998 calculations on thousands of self reports. Dr. Rind has to stick with the data from the 35,703 people who completed self-reports in the 59 studies in the meta-analysis. The U.S. Congress, the public, and most of you obviously feel very differently about the facts. That's one of the reasons why there is a controversy about the results, and this page. Radvo (talk) 21:44, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to all for your comments. I am gaining a better understanding of Wikipedia, procedures, and concerns. After reading the above comments, I have edited my contribution with an eye toward avoiding things that might be seen as opinion or disputable, and adding a lot of citations/sources to specific pages and tables. The new version is less than 600 words (I think it grew in size because it takes more words to spell out facts than to summarize them in a way that might be challenged as opinion). I also removed some useful information, but I hope in the future to add it elsewhere in the page where it will be more appropriate.

The issue of "cherry-picking" was raised. I suspect a major point of the open-edit policy of Wikipedia is to ensure that cherry-picking will be quickly noticed and balancing information will be added. Indeed, one can always point to a fact one does not like and say it was cherry-picked; the test though is whether or not balancing facts can be presented. I do not believe I cherry-picked anything, but if anything in my summary seems out of balance, please let me know and I'll try to address the concerns or explain why I think it should be included in the brief summary.

Regarding citation style, I understand I should use "short citations". I have searched the PsycInfo bibliographic database and it seems there is only one Rind et al. 1998 (the college meta-analysis) and only one Rind & Tromovitch 1997 (the national meta-analysis), thus I suggest short citations without titles, since the titles appear in the full citations and should not be ambiguous now or in the future.

Following is my proposed new version, without properly formatted citations (lower page numbers are referring to Rind et al. 1998; higher page numbers are to Rind & Tromovitch 1997):

Findings in Brief

Prior to publishing the 1998 Rind et al. meta-analysis that was based on college samples[re-cite], Rind and Tromovitch published a meta-analysis based on national samples[re-cite]. The 1998 manuscript replicated the overall, nationally representative findings regarding the association between experiencing one or more episodes categorized as CSA and later psychological adjustment.[p. 42] Both the national studies and the college studies showed only a small overall average association between CSA and impairment (on a scale of 0 to 100, the association was less than 1.0; separated by gender it was approximately 0.5 for males and 1.0 for females; correlation rs=.07 and .10, respectively).[p. 31, 33, Table 4 & p. 248, Table 6] Most social science research is designed so that on average, 1 out of 20 findings will be statistical outliers if the research is perfectly conducted. The 10 national samples contained 1 statistical outlier; the 54 college samples contained 3 statistical outliers, as expected in social science research; after removing these outliers, the findings across both male and female samples (both within the national samples and the college samples) were highly consistent (i.e., homogeneous), thus the small averages are not the result of mixing studies with markedly different findings.[p. 31, 33, Table 4 and see p. 248-249] Even when the researchers included the statistical outliers, the overall result was small.[p. 31] In addition to the overall analyses, in the college study the researchers examined the 18 most studied, alleged symptoms of having experienced CSA (e.g., self-esteem problems, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, sexual problems, etc.). Fifteen out of eighteen of these data sets were homogeneous after outlier removal, and all 18 average associations were small both before and after outlier removal.[p. 32 Table 3]

The researchers conducted the college meta-analysis in part because the college studies provided data regarding causality which was lacking in the national studies.[pp. 25, 42] The analyses of these data showed that CSA was unlikely to be the major causal variable, if it is a causal variable at all.[p. 39-40, Table 12] In studies that controlled for any confounding variables, less than 1 in 5 attempts to find a statistically significant finding between CSA and harm did so.[p. 40] Poor family environments and other confounding variables were found to be 9-fold better explanations for the small associations that were found in the main analyses, suggesting that the causal association between CSA and harm is small at most, but perhaps zero in the typical case.[p. 39-40]

In addition to the meta-analyses that compared people who experienced CSA with controls, the researchers also summarized the available data on peoples' reactions to the experiences that were labeled as CSA by researchers. They found that nearly one-third of females and two-thirds of males who had an experience that was labeled as CSA, reported that the experience was neutral or positive.[p. 36, Table 7]

The researchers pointed out that a likely reason their findings were counter to expectations that CSA causes prevalent, intense harm, regardless of gender,[p. 238-239; see also p. 23-26] was at least in part due to the use of definitions of CSA that are of questionable scientific validity.[p. 46] The authors then suggested that researchers label willing sexual encounters that were experienced positively as "adult-child sex" and that other experiences such as unwanted and negative experiences be labeled as "child sexual abuse" so that researchers would be more likely to achieve a valid understanding of the heterogeneous behaviors currently grouped under the CSA label.[p. 46-47] The authors then closed their article pointing out that although scientists should use definitions that produce better scientific validity, this did not mean that "moral or legal definitions of or views on ... CSA should be abandoned or even altered."[p. 47] Truthinwriting (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

[Herostratus commented ,but his remarks have since been archived] i.e., before elsewhere "I [Herostratus] am also not qualified to vet the [Rind] paper, but I have some familiarity with the paper. I wish I could say it's a piece of junk since its conclusions are (in part) pretty unsavory, but it's not."

It's great to read that Truthinwriting does NOT have to deal with Dr. Laura's accusation that the Rind et al. study is "junk science"! So Rind's math and science are not junk. But Herostratus may speak for many when he says that he is not qualified to vet the science or math but Rind's conclusions are nevertheless "(in part) pretty unsavory". IMHO, Rind is a mathematical genius, but any one with a name like Herostratus may be excellent in identifying the unsavory aspect of the conclusions. (BTW, swooping down on guys with "Truth" in their names and redacting their entire contribution is in harmony with the meaning of Herostratus name. So, now I hope Herostratus will work with Truthinwriting to make the summary of the Rind study better.) I would like to draw out Herostratus "unsavory" impression and to have it discussed openly. I ask Herostratus to share, if he can remember, what is the "unsavory" part of Rind's study? I'd like to hear Herostratus' view; he is very good with words, and has been around the Rind article here for a long time. I ask other long time editors here the same. Has Truthinwriting included the "unsavory" part of Rind's conclusions? Or has the second version of the summary omitted that? If there is something "unsavory" about the scientific conclusion, it should be included in the article somehow in a sensitive and integrated way. Dr. Spiegel was able to do that, in his fine critique. The honest inclusion of excellent critique will give Truthinwriting's summary of the science more credibility with the public. This is not only science; this is about children, taboo, and common sense. "Usavory" may arise from the deeply archetypal, instinctual, spiritual, or religious. Is the failing, in the statement of the Rind conclusion, something about morality that is lacking? Some have already stated things like this in comments elsewhere in the controversy. Mmmm Or "unsavory" may go something like this: "So, if in the typical case, CSA may NOT be psychologically harmful to the child, I don't want to know this, and I don't need to know this. Why would anyone need to know this? Or maybe it is good news for the involved child, too, but I am confused, suspicious, hostile about these findings." Are there good sources that capture these unsavory aspects of the Rind controversy? If already published, that may be part of the controversy about this study, too. I have seen such commentary from credible sources, and will eventually get to posting that. Unfortunately, no original research. But if the final Wikipedia article is excellent, it will be well received by many here. It's up to you who are willing to contribute.

On another matter for Truthinwriting: A suggestion for rewording the small section in parentheses in your first paragraph of your summary: Do these two sentences seem more accurate and more understandable to the public? "The proportion of later personal adjustment variance associated with the early experience of CSA is 1/2 of 1% for males, and 1% for females. Therefore, in this analysis, the early CSA experience(s) failed to explain, for the typical person, 99% or 99.5% of the person's personal adjustment later in life." [end]

These numbers were calculated after working with thousands of cases, and these percentages do not explain any individual case.

Would this be a good idea? Is there a volunteer editor, who watches here, who could take the short proposed summary and rewrite it, just a little bit, to make it less technical and more understandable to the average non-college graduate? Of course, precision is more important than readability, and Truthinwriting puts his name to it, so it's up to him. Also small edits to make the final text easier to read may be added by any editor later on.

Is there anyone here who strongly objects to the idea of a summary or to this version of the summary, and who will redact or undo it entirely as soon as it is posted? If this summary needs small edits, maybe they can be more easily done on the Wikipedia article site; the software is made for this. Radvo (talk) 05:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

It has been a few days since I posted my revised and sourced version of the "Findings in Brief" here on the talk page. I'll wait a few more days so people have more time to comment, if they wish. If there seems to be no serious problem, I'll then format the citations and edit it into the article page, probably in about 3 days. FYI. Truthinwriting (talk) 05:55, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Repetition & neutral point of view; activation of external web-links

How can the controversy, caused by the Rind et al. article, best be described, using reliable sources? Not by repeating the same ideas and same advocate sources in two different parts of the article!

The third paragraph from the top (starting with the words "Rind et al. concluded") and the entire section further down entitled "Usage outside of scholarly discussions" cover the same ideas with different detail. This repetition, in two different parts of this article, give these ideas, and their advocacy sources, undue weight. By repeating the two ideas (the mention by tiny, fringe, advocacy groups that have almost no followers and the article's use for the defense in a few legal cases), misrepresent the views of the Rind article by the high-quality, reliable academic sources that commented on, and added to, the controversy. Besides Dr. Dallam and Dr. Ondersma, who are given a lot of space in this Wikipedia article, much of the voluminous published commentary (see the two websites mentioned below in this Section), after the first year, ignored these two aspects of the early controversy. So that observation sets off a little buzzer in my head. Why are the pedoactivist and court aspects so important to Dr. Dallam and Dr. Ondersma. I speculate on this more in the next section. Radvo (talk) 06:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

In the Rind article's section entitled ==Usage outside of scholarly discussions==, there are 4 websites listed; three were inserted by other editors. The fourth evolved out of one of the original three, and is devoted solely to the Rind controversy. These websites belong to the kinds of activist groups that Dallam asserts use the Rind et al. report. This section of the Wikipedia article claims that web-sites like these use the Rind report "outside of scholarly discussion." Two of these websites are devoted to the controversy in greater detail than this website. But I was today unable to verify on these websites any use of the Rind results to specifically advocate any lowering of age in age-of-consent laws in any state legislature. This part of Dahlam's 2001 claim is probably outdated. So, I note this in the text of the article. This accusation sets off another little buzzer in my head.

(Editorial: Foreigners who live under different laws should know that in the United States of America, we have a viable democracy and a wonderful Constitution that allows any of its citizens to advocate a change in the age-of-consent law. Citizens can form a flat earth society, become Communists, and read Mao's Little Red Book. Parts of this Wikipedia Rind et al. article may give foreigners the impression that advocacy of legal reform by citizens here is not permitted or illegal. This is not true. In Stalanist Russia, these activists would probably have been executed or banished to Siberia long ago. But if Justin Bieber, who I believe is 17 years old, was a U.S. citizen, and lived in a state that had an age of consent set at 18, he could organize, with his girlfriend and his millions of fans, to have the age of consent law reset at 17. It is wrong IMHO to give foreigners the impression that, if Justin Bieber did this in the USA, his age of consent reform activism would be taboo, illegal, an attempt to normalize pedophilia, or an advocacy of inappropriate relationships with children. The tiny number of pedophile activists in the USA are covered in their political activism, by the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. I have always been a proud member of the ACLU.)

For future verification purposes, the four websites, included in this "Usage outside of scholarly discussions" Section, should be easily accessible to the reader, to show that Dallam is no longer relevant regarding the association of the Rind report with specific age-of-consent reform advocacy. I did not remove from the Wikipedia article the assertion that Dallam made in 2001, as her claim about the websites' usage may have been verifiable then.

The Wikipedia reader of the Rind article/page can get to the NAMbLA web-site with two mouse clicks, via the Wikipedia article on NAMbLA, which in turn gives the functioning web-link to the organizational website. I could not see on the NAMbLA site how any description of the results of the Rind study were used to advocate age of consent reform. Can anyone here find what Dr. Dallam claims? (BTW, Susan Clancy's book, The Abuse Myth, has not been condemned by the U.S. Congress because Peter Herman from NAMbLA reviews it on NAMbLA's website. This sets off another little buzzer in my head. Why was the Rind report condemned for being reviewed by the NAMbLA web-site and Clancy and others who books were reviewed were not.) Age-of-consent organizations "that have not dissolved have only minimal membership and have ceased their activities other than through a few websites." See [age of consent reform].

If functional outside web-links were added to the three other websites in that Section (i.e., to Ipce, MHAMic, Everything you wanted...), the Wikipedia reader of this article might, with the click of the mouse, verify the current web use of the Rind Report, viz. its "use outside of scholarly discussions". The Wikipedia articles on two of these groups have been deleted, so the links are broken.

Of particular interest to those who contribute to this Rind controversy article might be these two websites (below), which also deal with the Rind controversy:

[Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic]

The text describing the controversy is interesting, and provides IMHO a much more rich and complex version of the controversy than provided here on Wikipedia. It would be great if Wikipeida editors got some additional quality sources for the Wikipedia article from this website.

The other web-link is:

[The RBT Files at Ipce]

This Dutch web-site holds scores of articles directly related to the controversy, distributed in a confusing collection of "Libraries" that are not immediately apparant. I've read that the Netherlands is country where sharing files without profit is legal.[See Section entitled 'Countries where sharing files in legal'] There are still more articles on associated web-pages than are listed on the Introductory page. This website can be used for further private research by editors and interested readers here. There is at least one original article there about the Rind controversy, and some math education for people who want to understand meta-analysis. I believe the web site was maintained from the start by Dr. Frans Gieles, with what may be a tiny group of Dutch and German volunteers. Besides English, there are Dutch, French, Spanish and German language articles about the Rind Report. I once saw a foreign language article in Latvia, where the author claimed something like America had lost its place as the champion of democracy because the Rind report was condemned by the Congress. Herostratus may think there was a little controversy about the Rind article, and its condemnation by the Congress, but he may be poorly informed about how foreigners were watching this with dismay.

I would like to fix the web-links in the article to these external websites, but want to first get feedback about the permissibility from the editors or administrators here who know the copyright and other rules. The NAMbLA web-link in the article works, so I assume this link is not in violation of Wiki-pedia's Child Protection Policy. Since the Section is about the use of these 4 websites for verification purposes of claims by a third party, it may be acceptable under Wikipedia's rules to link to them. Radvo (talk) 01:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

The introductory paragraphs of the Rind et al. article currently contains this sentence, which I would like to remove, I bring this matter up here to first get feedback.

Here's the sentence I wish to remove, from near the beginning of the article.

"Numerous age of consent reform organizations have quoted the [Rind et al.] paper in support of their efforts to lower or rescind age of consent laws, and defense attorneys have used the study to argue for minimizing harm in child sexual abuse cases.[4][5]"

The 2 sources (footnoted in 4 and 5) that support this statement are professionals but IMHO are not neutral observers; they are advocates for two different alternative views that have done much to sustain the controversy.

(1) Dr. Ondersma is associated with the advocacy group APSAAC, a professional group of CSA counselors. I was told that this advocacy group was formed, in part, to resist and counter the public and professional skepticism that questioned the mindless professional support of the ridiculous claims of preschool children in the McMartin Preschool case in California, et al.. The Ondersma group may be the guardians of the rhetoric, methods, and techniques that caused the moral panic around the preschool cases for a number of years. The counselors in this group made some people pretty mad, and IMHO they had to circle the wagons to protect themselves.

(2) Dr. Stephanie Dallam was with The Leadership Council. Those professionals organized, in part, to defend member therapists against malpractice lawsuits, These therapists (allegedly fraudulently, according to the lawsuits) diagnosed their patients with so called "recovered memories' of incest, and multiple personality disorder. This was another moral panic, that included the controversial recovered memories phenomenon. The Leadership Council has considerable professional interest in who controls the rhetoric about incest and CSA, especially in Congress, among judges, and in juries. This professional interest of The Leadership Council to control the rhetoric that gets to the legislatures and the courts sets off another buzzer in my head. These are not professionals with a neutral point of view; they have an agenda and want to protect their professional members from malpractice suites when things go wrong. It's a free country, and I support their right to organize,too. But I oppose the use of their rhetoric as a neutral and unbiased source.

The therapists associated with these two groups IMHO are not mainstream; the science associated with these therapists is not regarded, by their mainstream professional peers, as the strongest in the field. I hae no problem with developing alternative therapies, unless the professional members of these groups are getting a lot of malpractice suites filed against them. Then it is time for these professionals to get out and control the rhetoric. That sets off another buzzer in my head.

The sentence quoted above suggests there are "numerous" organizations that support age of consent reform. "Numerous" in nonsense if you read the Wikipedia article on Age of Consent reform organizations. Associating these tiny fringe groups with the Rind study is also nonsense. (The NAMbLA website now features a long review of Susan Clancy's book, The Abuse Myth. Is that reason for her book to now be condemned by the Congress, and by these two advocacy groups?)

Then the sentence in the Introduction of the Rind article mentions the Rind study being used in court. Now the alarm buzzer is loud and steady. For the people in The Leadership Council this controversy is about who controls the discourse in the legislatures and in the courts. If the Rind study gains any credibility or following in the public, then the professionals from The Leadership Council, who are being sued in court over repressed memories, will have more difficulty defending themselves against juries that may give huge damage awards in civil suits. I suspect this is what these groups are about.

These two advocacy groups have considerable interest in discrediting the Rind et al. studies by successfully associating the Rind research with controversy, with the condemnation by Congress, with "numerous" fringe pedophile advocacy organizations and to so-called pedophile activists. And with the use of the Rind study in courts of law. And with the current Wikipedia article that further destroys the credibility of the Rind research. (Except that Heather Ulrich duplicated the Rind study in 2005, and came up with the identical results. Go figure.) If the rhetoric of this Wikipedia article is transformed into an article with a more neutral point of view, this article will be probably nominated for deletion by the same people who put it up here originally.

The buzzer is quite loud and steady now.

I want to work to make this article a fair and balanced one. But then I expect that it will be taken down from Wikipeida, and have to exist in an independent site. Let's see how this comes out.

I speculate that some of the claims made by the advocates for these professionals, who may rightly fear lawsuits, to damage the credibility of the Rind study as valid court evidence. These two groups may be protecting members who were being sued (or might be sued in the future) and want their views in court to go unchallenged by the controversial Rind studies. These two groups see the Rind studies as a professional threat and thus a rival to be discredited. I see the earlier versions of the Wikipeida article as good public relations for these advocates. Some of the sources this article uses as neutral and quality sources are not IMHO disinterested, they are part of the kind of non-mainstream professional groups that created and maintain the controversy.

The reason I bring this up is the Wikipeida editors need reliable sources. The Wikipedia editors incorrectly IMHO regard Dallam and Ondersma as neutral sources. I don't think they are neutral sources for the purpose of sourcing this article. I think they are part of the reason these is a controversy; they weigh in heavily against the Rind study.

The views of Dr. Dallam and Dr. Ondersma are very much part of The Rind et al. controversy. I see them as protagonists, and they should not be Sources for the neutral introduction of the controversy.

So I want that biased sentence in the introduction to be deleted.

Please advise.

Radvo (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Revised and expanded Radvo (talk) 00:15, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The removal of my contributions on December 12th by two anonymous users, 193.169.145.61 and 193.169.145.48

All my contributions to this article were removed on December 12th. Here is the edit showing what was edited out. A reason given for these many removals was that I was allegedly "adding tags to things that are already cited or cited lower in the article."

I am confused and bewildered by the reasons for the drastic edit by the first anonymous editor. This was not a revert, redaction or "undo" of one particular post, but the first anonymous editor cherry picked each edit I made since my first post and removed them all.

If the "Citation Tag" or Tags were allegedly inappropriate, the specific tags themselves could have been challenged by the first anonymous editor with a credible explanation for the challenge. So, a more parsimonious and appropriate solution, IMHO, would have been for the anonymous editor to simply remove the erroneous "Citation Tag(s)" with a clear explanation, like e.g., "The footnote was already cited, or cited lower in the article." I could have checked that out, silently conceded my error and not contested the removal of the tag, or responded to the objection to my placement of the particular "Citation Tag." If that is too much for a new editor on this topic to ask, I make another suggestion below.

Most of the text that was removed by the two anonymous users, had nothing to do with "Citation Tags."

The restoration of the non-contested text involves a lot of unnecessary work -- for a second time. I seek this partial remedy: I ask that the anonymous editor at least identify the specific "Citation Tag(s)" in contest. All editors here and I have a right to know which "Citation Tag" or Tags provoked such an inappropriate response.

If any other editors here, who are "fit" and in good standing, wish to volunteer to do any part of that restoration work, please feel free to do so. Please do not restore any contested "Citation Tags" to the article; it would help to know which of the "Citation Tags" are contested. If the restoration or the requested assistance by volunteer editors to do the restoration is against a Wikipedia rule or policy that I don't know about, please follow the rules.

There is a discussion of my fitness to be an editor on this article at the very end of Flyer22's talk page The arguments do not focus on the quality of my contributions, but are abusive ad hominem attacks (also called personal abuse or personal attacks); "these usually involve insulting or belittling one's opponent in order to attack his claim or invalidate his argument, but can also involve pointing out true character flaws or actions that are irrelevant to the opponent's argument. This tactic is logically fallacious because insults and negative facts about the opponent's personal character have nothing to do with the logical merits of the opponent's arguments or assertions." See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem_attack) An ad hominem attack violates the rules. An Edit War based on an Ad hominem attack cannot be justified, and, INHO, all removals should be reversed for this reason.

The discussion at Flyer22's{www.mhamic.org/rind/) talk page includes this sentence by the second anonymous editor: "the other anon is wrong! i just gave my response on the discussion page. i was edit warring, but i was justified." 107.20.1.111 (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)" I wonder from the last sentence in this quote here whether the two different anonymous editors are the same person using two different computers (with very similar IP addresses). Would an investigation of this suspicion be in order? If someone is violating the rules and policies, we want to know about that. We all expect that the rules are enforced in an even-handed way. See also (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_personal_attacks)

How do I raise the issue about the fitness of the two anonymous editors, for the two reasons cited above? Please advise.

I don't see the anonymous's "response on the discussion page." I would like to read the "response on the discussion page," so I could better understand if I erred in placing any or all of the "Citations Tags",

Since I am new here, and those were my first experiments with using "Citation Tags", I am willing to make this concession for now: just remove all the contested "citation tags" without any reason. I would go along with that to reduce the controversy, to build confidence in my good will, and to give me time and experience to understand what is possible here.

The discussion at the very end of Flyer22's talk pageconfuses two very different web-sites: Everything you wanted to know about the Rind Controversy is confused with a controversial bibliographic list of academic resources (mhamic.org). I had nothing to do with the creation and maintenance of either of those websites, but Everything you wanted to know about the Rind Controversy deals in depth with some aspects of the same Rind controversy as this Wikipedia article. So I bookmarked that link on, what I thought was, my private user page for further reference. I did not imagine that bookmarking that page in that way was against any Wikipedia policy here, or would motivate someone to cherry pick ALL of my past edits for removal. I have already removed that link from my user page and will not restore it. I hope this remedy helps to create a better climate for my future editing here.

I wish to make further quality contributions to this article, and I wish to learn and follow all Wikipedia rules and policies. I understand this article is a controversial issue; The word "controversy" appears in the article's title. I do not wish to be confrontational or make some editors here nervous. I wish to build confidence in my knowledge about this topic, in my good will, and in my willingness to work within Wikipedia's rules and policies. Radvo (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

IP 107.20.1.111 wasn't talking about this article. He or she was responding to a dispute going on at Sexual fetishism. Click on that IP and you'll see the user's contributions.

Confuses two very different web sites? Nuh-uh. www.mhamic.org/rind/ is www.mhamic.org/. It's just a different section of the same web site. I was right to revert you. Plus, you complain about cherry picking, but you were cherry picking at already sourced lines and skewing things. Leave me be. 193.169.145.59 (talk) 03:56, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I accept your correction about IP 107.20.1.111. You are right. I was confused, and I made a mistake, I apologize, and I will try to be more careful with anon IP addresses in the future.

And yes, You are absolutely right. (http://www.mhamic.org/rind/) is part of (http://www.mhamic.org/). I have removed the offending web-link from my User page. Would you allow the acceptability of a link to (http://www.mhamic.org/rind/) to go so some kind of arbitration? And we'll both live with the decision of the arbiter?

And yes, cherry picking is wrong. I want to be fair and not cherry pick. I was picking at already sourced lines, and skewing things up that were long ago settled on this page. Those were stupid moves on my part. You want me to leave you be, Okay... So I won't discuss my particular reservations with you. I'll drop the "Citation Tags," and I'll leave you be. I'll guess which Citation Tags you are referring to, and I will not put those "Citation Tags" back. I'll leave you be.

I'd like to put most of my other contributions back into the article's page, except for the specific "Citation Tags" that offend you. How about a deal? I leave you be, and you leave me be? I don't want to edit war with you. If there are particular posts I make (or citation tags that I insert) that you don't like, I will listen to you and try to respond sensitively.

I want to leave you be. Do we have a deal? Radvo (talk) 06:34, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I can only agree to you reinserting your edits with the following exceptions:

• Leave out your citation tags. You already appear open to that.

• Leave the POV-check out of the intro.

• Do not change "The paper was posted on numerous of advocacy websites such as International Pedophile and Child Emancipation (IPCE), the Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors information center (MHAMIC) and North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), and has been used to argue that the age of consent should be lowered or abolished."... to "...the study was, nevertheless, also used by a relatively small number of individuals and by fringe groups, referred to collectively here as advocates for pedophilia. The Rind et al. Report was posted, or its journal reference was cited, on advocacy websites, such as the extensive 'The RBT Files' Section of the International Pedophile and Child Emancipation (IPCE, now Ipce), the Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors information center (MHAMic) (website expanded to 'Everything You Wanted to Know about the Rind Controversy MHAMic'), and the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMbLA).

Relatively small number of individuals? No, what is there is more specific and precise. Referred to collectively here as advocates for pedophilia? No, it's not just here at Wikipedia that they are referred to that way. They are advocates for pedophilia, period. And I don't know why you added all those dead link tags. There are no dead links in that paragraph and the information is supported by the Dallam2001 source.

• Do not add "The current usage of the Rind et al. Report outside of scholarly discussions by these named websites can be Googled. The 'Net, and its use by activist individuals and fringe groups, is always changing. Inspection of these four websites in December 2012 does not find the results of the Rind et al. Report are used to specifically advocate lowering of age of consent laws. No specific ages are mentioned on these cited websites."

Even if true, this information is irrelevant and is WP:OR. What are you trying to do? Make it seem as though these websites no longer support the Rind study and that we don't know how low they are asking for the age of consent to be lowered? Just because the Rind study may not be highly discussed on these websites anymore doesn't mean that they no longer support it. Pedophiles will always support this study and skew it toward their POV.

• When you change "It has also been used in several court cases by child sexual offenders as a defense." to "The Rind et al. study has also been used in several court cases by child sexual offenders as a defense.", you do not have to place a citation tag there just because no recent source is placed beside it. You can change "has also been" to "was," since you are so concerned with the fact that the line gives the implication that this is still going on.

Those are my requests. 193.169.145.43 (talk) 23:37, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Question for an Administrator: Is activating the dead web-links in the "Usage outside of scholarly discussions" section allowed by Wikepedia policy?

I want to bring the dead external web-links in the ['Usage outside of scholarly discussion' Section] to the attention of a Wikipedia administrator within the next week, unless this matter can reach some strong consensus here on the TALK page. I am not so familiar with the rules and policies and how they are implemented, but eager to learn the rules and operate within them.

To the appropriate Wikipedia authority or Administrator:

I am a new editor, as of the beginning of December. I need an authoritative answer from an administrator (or similar). I asked about this on the TALK page, and I now raise this matter with an administrator.

In the section ['Usage outside of scholarly discussion' in Wikipedia's Rind et al. Controversy article], three websites are named; one link is active; two links are dead, one link should be upgraded to a different section of the website.

All four websites are active here, so editors may see the active links that might be placed into the article: [NAMbLA] [The RBT Files at Ipce], [The Male Homosexual Attraction to Minors Information Center MHAMic] [Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic] This last is a different section of the previous website; the latter deals only with the Rind et al controversy. If by posting these links here I have violated any rule or policy, please delete only the active links immediately.

The question I have is about the permissibility of making these web-links active in the article itself.

According to Dr. Dallam, a highly esteemed, anti-Rind advocate, often used as a reliable source to explain the controversy in this article, these websites were allegedly and inappropriately misusing Rind's scholarly article for political advantage, and these websites are identified in the Wikipedia article for verification purposes. The NAMbLA link in the article works thru another Wikipedia article; with just two clicks of the mouse, one is on the NAMbLA website. The other external links do not work in the article. Since these are links to the work of unknowns, they are NOT referred to in the article as reliable sources. The three links are named, so the Wikipedia reader can verify for him-herself the alleged misuse of the Rind scholarly article on these fringe and non-mainstream websites. The links are associated by Dr. Dallam with tiny fringe organizations that advocate age-of-consent reform. The web-links are external to, and heatedly controversial within, Wikipedia.

Here's my question that needs an authoritative answer: Assuming the consensus of editors of this article is to keep this section of the article as it is, would fixing these dead external links violate any Wikipedia rule, viz. regarding Copyright, using quality sources for verification, or the Wikipedia Policy on Child Protection? Or would active external links be too controversial, and therefore unwanted?

An alternative view of the editing might go like this: Naming and activating these links might be like placing active external links to variations of the Flat Earth Society, clearly a fringe group, within which nested web-sites are links to many articles from mainstream sources that are allegedly being cited "inappropriately" for the political pu[Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic]rposes of the 'Belief in the Earth is Flat Revival'. The purpose of associating the study with favorable reviews and citations by variations of the Flat Earth Society is solely to discredit the study's authors, especially, as noted twice in the article, in court (i.e., with judges and juries). The Wikipedia article and the controversy are like saying: "The Rind et al. 1998 meta-analysis must be discredited and trashed because it is 'trumpeted' by the Flat Earth Society on its website."

The first Wikipedia paragraph in the 'Usage outside...' Section is IMHO a "guilt by association" fallacy, a kind of ad hominem attack on Rind et al., a claim that a former Wikipedia editor feels is necessary to repeat in Wikipeida's voice in this Wikipedia article to give the fallacious argument additional weight. The argument goes like this: The mathematical research produced by the Rind et al trio was reviewed or cited favorably on the website of these 3 despicable fringe groups. Therefore, the Wikipedia must also come, by implication, to guilt by association, that Rind et al (and Heather Ulrich et al.) must be morally wrong and despicable like those tiny fringe groups." I edited an alternative version of this section, but my contributions were cherry picked out for deletion by two anonymous editors with similar IP addresses.

I am considering an alternative edit: The entire "Usage outside of scholarly discussion" section should be dropped from the Wikipedia article entirely. That may not reach consensus either. If the article is rewritten in a NPOV to avoid sullying the reputation of the esteemed Wikepedia with the ad hominem and "guilt by association" attack on Rind et al., and, by implication, on Heather Ulrich et al. (who did a replication of the calculations in 2005, and arrived at identical results) (all six authors are covered by relevant [BLP policies]), then I want to know if the dead external links must remain inactive to comply with one or more Wikipedia rules or policies.

There is another aspect to this: I bookmarked [Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic] on my personal page so I could easily find that link again, and was attacked for that, and all my contributions to this article were cherry picked out of the article by two anonymous editors. I have since removed that link from my user page, and have no intention of putting it back there. Radvo (talk) 01:01, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Woah woah woah woah. What the Sam Hill is going on here? These are not good links. You linked to MHAMic on your userpage and you were called on that and you find this surprising? We do not link to MHAMic any more than we link to Storm Front or whatever. Please use some basic common sense, thanks!

As the rest, could you try to be a little more succinct? There's a heck of a lot to read here. Anyway, we do not want to link to the NAMBLA web site and similar sites from the Wikipedia for any reason, I would say, period. These are primary sources for the material you want to cite anyway, which is usually discouraged. Find a reputable secondary source. Herostratus (talk) 04:05, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for response and your advise: Be succinct. I'll try that.

YES, I FOUND "THAT" COMPLETELY SURPRISING! Cross my heart & hope to die!

"WE do not link to" the Storm Front or the NAMbLA. Well, Surprise!

Correction # 1: [Stormfront] has functioning link to [Stormfront's external link] Irrelevant, I know. But fun to pont out the facts. (Thanks; I feel like a teenager again!)

Correction # 2: The Wikipedia Rind topic has an active link to [NAMbLA], and that Wikipedia page, in turn, links directly to NAMbLA's external website. Please, check it out: NAMbLA is two mouse clicks away from the Rind article. Really! I wrote that already above; sorry you missed it because I was not succinct. My fault.

Correction # 3: I bookmarked [Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic]. Please give me basic common courtesy and please do not confuse the public with the two different sections of MHAMic. Look! The page I bookmarked is something like [Wikipedia's Rind et al. Controversy article], but less focus on the Dallam criticisms (which Rind et al. fully refuted already in 2001 and which Ulrich et al. already corrected for in the 2005 replication. In [Everything you wanted to know about The Rind Controversy MHAMic], you'll learn something: the Rind controversy was more than what Wikipedia has to say so far.

Correction # 4: The 3 primary web-sources, with active links, were inserted in the article by other editor(s). Two links now broken. The burden to find "secondary sources" was the other editors'. Period?

BTW, the allies already beat the original Storm Front 66 years ago; Storm Front lost. Irrelevant? You injected the Neo-Nazi's into this. Sorry, it's late, and I feel prickly. Enough.

"A little more succinct" was fun. Please, no offense intended. If this retort was not polite or respectful enough, it was The Sam Hill who made me do it. I'll be extra nice next time, after I get some sleep. Promise. Cheers. Radvo (talk) 09:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)