Talk:Mail-order bride

Summary of controversy

I'm providing a Summary. On this page we're trying to decide whether to remove or keep two sections. The first is Demographics, which suggests a relationship exists between the gender gap in Russia and the mail-order bride phenomenon. The references to HIV and alcoholism also suggest a correlation between these issues and mail-order brides. The CIA Factbook does not serve as a reference as it does not discuss or establish any relationship between mail-order brides and demographics, alcoholism, HIV or anything else. As yet, no-one has provided any other source that supports a cause-effect relationship, so the section is original research. We're voting on whether the entire Demographics section should be deleted.

The other section is Personal anti-fraud measures. We're voting on whether it should be deleted. Some editors think it's inappropriate since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a "How-to" guide.

Please help by voting on this matter! Click here to get to the voting section. --The Famous Movie Director 00:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Poll on edits by Michaellovesnyc (talk · contribs)

Statements

• Statement by kaiwen1 (talk · contribs): The 'Demographics section is speculation and POV. It suggests a relationship exists between the gender gap in Russia and the mail-order bride phenomenon. No research supports this conclusion. (Much larger gender gaps exist in African countries that have no mail-order brides.) The references to HIV and alcoholism also suggest a correlation between these issues and mail-order brides. The CIA Factbook does not serve as a reference as it does not discuss or establish any relationship between mail-order brides and demographics, alcoholism, HIV or anything else. The entire Demographics section should be deleted. Personal anti-fraud measures should also be removed. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a "How-to" guide. Gavin 17:33, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Thoumsin (talk · contribs): The gender gap in Russia is used by agency for promote own business. Demographics statistic show that from birth to around 45 year old, you have no gender gap. Only for older people, you can find more women that men. These older women are not really "material" used by MOB business. The main cause of these gender gap is the life time in Russia : around 58 year old for men and 73 year old for women.

- Simply take a look at the graph at : http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/Forum/index.php?topic=1094.msg26767#msg26767

- Or follow the several statistical link at : http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/Forum/index.php?topic=1094.msg26793#msg26793

- Or a example about the "city of bride" Tver : http://www.russianwomendiscussion.com/Forum/index.php?topic=1094.msg26797#msg26797

In short, the gender gap is not related to MOB business, it is a myth !!! Demographics data are only good when analysed deeply.

• • • michaellovesnyc - You are using statistics that some guy made up on a chatroom. You can't even see any numbers on that graph because it is intentionally confusing. And they point to dead links so whats the point anyway? I am getting my FACTS from the CIA and Time Almanac as well as my own personal experience. You can not possibly believe some made up numbers over the CIA. Are you telling me the CIA and the Mail Order Agencies are involved in some conspirtacy ? This is the final straw; you people just want to lie and do not care about facts. That is what this whole debate is about; lies versus facts and no amount of facts will chane your opinion; you can always find some chatroom discussion to dispute any authoritative source to "prove" your point. I have been in Russia and I know there are many more women than men. In one city called Penza in the South of Russia, there were 100 women for every man. The CIA and Time back this up with numbers. Just like the lie about the lack of african mail order brides, you have your bias against mail order brides and that is it regardless of truth. In fact; I EXCLUDED the elder population because some men would not want to marry them, but a lot of older men wouyld. If I included those numbers, the difference would be even greater: FROM CIA:

RUSSIA 0-14 years: 14.2% (male 10,441,151/female 9,921,102) 15-64 years: 71.3% (male 49,271,698/female 52,679,463) 65 years and over: 14.4% (male 6,500,814/female 14,079,312) (2006 est.) More than 10 Million more women than men

UKRAINE 0-14 years: 14.1% (male 3,377,868/female 3,203,738) 15-64 years: 69.3% (male 15,559,998/female 16,831,486) 65 years and over: 16.6% (male 2,635,651/female 5,102,075) (2006 est.) About 4 Million More women than men

This does not even include all the other FSU states that have more women than men So we are talking 14-15 million more women than men in these countries; about 10 % of the FSU population or about 5 % of the U.S. population.

If anything, my demographics UNDERSTATED the number of women. I exclided over 64 and excluded all the other FSU countries. If your chatrooms can be used as a source, maybe I should start using the agency sites as a source. I think they are more accurate than a chatroom.

Reply by Thoumsin (talk · contribs):

- First, it is not a chatroom but a forum... and the guy who have post the graph and link was myself

- The graph is generated by the site of the "US Census Bureau"... for 2006, take a look at http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyry.pl?cty=RS&maxp=6554445&maxa=100&ymax=300&yr=2006&.submit=Submit+Query ... generate yourself a graph at http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbpyr.html ... Since it is a official site of the US gourverment who is specialised in statistical data, it seem that data are more reliable that these from the CIA!!!

- For the links, they have change since the post but it direct you to the "statistic commitee of Ukraine", who is the Ukrainian census. For a age pyramide from the last census ( 2001 ), http://www.ukrcensus.gov.ua/g/d2_2001.gif ... For Russia, the age pyramide is from the census of 2002, take a look at http://www.perepis2002.ru/content.html?id=11&docid=10715289081461 . The gray border is when you have more of one gender that the other. Until around 20 year, you have more men that women, so why you find so much young lady in MOB agency since they have enough male. Between 20 and 35 year old, you have around the same number on both side. Only around 45 year old, the differece become very big. Browse MOB business and you will not find a lot of these older women, they are a minority.

-You say that you have go to russia... Great. About myself, i was owner of a MOB agengy in 1997 and 2005. I have use the same misinterpreted data that you use for attract customer. I was married with a russian woman during 5 year, my actual girlfriend is Ukrainian. I have make several trip to Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. So, myself, i know from what i speak too.

- About Penza, download the official data by oblast at http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/02-02_new.zip , it is a xls ( excel ) file. Check for the Penza oblast and you will see that your "100 women for every men" is a illusion ( i hope that you can read russian ). I have just find some english data, at http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/1-8.xls , scroll down to Penza and you will see that in 2002, you have 433218 males in age of working against 431683 females in age of working. Seem that these regio ( oblast ) have not enough women. Of course, if you look to women over the age of working, you have a little more that 100000 men to short. For people who wish marry a "babouska", Penza is the perfect place! These data are real data...

Take a look at the top of the table: Russian federation

- male under working age : 13452030

- female under working age : 12875253

ratio female/male: 95.71%

- male working age : 44812058

- female working age : 44129511

ratio female/male: 98.47%

- male over working age: 9280679

- female over working age: 20497305

ratio female/male : 220.85%

Since mail order bride are mainly in the categorie of "working age", the shortage of male don't exist... the real situation is the reverse. You can disagree but i don't see the logic in this. They are census number from US, Ukraine, and Russia. All other organisation ( CIA ) use the data from these census. These other organisation use only a part of the data and don't show all in the detail. Ex-USSR is not short in men but short in men who can be good marriage material ( alcohol, no work, drugs, lack of parental responsability, etc )

The real reason why ex-USSR women seek a foreign husband is not demographic. But more economical/social : a better life and a better husband. Of course, the demographic data can have a light influence since few women wish become widow due to the low life span of men in ex-USSR... In any case, some studies have show that you have around 150000 women in all the MOB agency who are from ex-USSR... a very little part of the population... They are young and sexy, seek a better future... some middle age women with children, a seeking too due to the fact that a Russian men don't accept easily women with already children.

So, i have give you fact, link to census site ( official data ). The data from the CIA fact are only a bad resume of the data from these census. They don't show all the dynamics of the population and the range 15-64 year old is irrelated to the thema ( MOB ). A range from 18 to 45 year old will be perfect since it represent around 95% of the MOB ( women ) find in agency.

PS: These chatroom ( forum ) can be a great source of information... you will find men seeking russian women, men already married with russian women, owner of marriage agency, men already divorced, russian women, etc... these forum is fully related to the MOB subject and ex-USSR ( but they don't like the term MOB )

• • • • Reply by michaellovesnyc:

1) Facts do not matter to you and you will distort them no matter what. First it is ILLEGAL to marry a girl under 15 so to include them in the ratios is absurd. Even to marry a girl under 25 is a big risk. The proper age to consider is between 25-34. You have to look at women of MARRYING AGE; and I am 44 so do not say that 44 is "old". And I did not and I NEVER claimed that deomgraphics was the ONLY factor did I? And if you believe that non-Russian women don't marry to improve their economic situation, then you need to wake up. I was also married to a sneaky lying Russian and I also have a MOB so your "expertise" does not impress me.

2) USING YOUR OWN NUMBERS (From the so-called International Data Base; whatever that is):

RUSSIA Total Men Women

25- 29 10,926,167 5,448,039 5,478,128 = 30,000 More Women 30- 34 10,298,566 5,119,877 5,178,689 = 60,000 More Women

Almost 100,000 more women in Russia between 25-34; the prime marrying age and 100,000 more if you go higher; MOST men on the tours are older, in their 50's and 60's, and these women would be great for them. So in addition to racism and sexism, we can add ageism to your list of traits.

3) YOUR Penza statistics are 14 years old; the CIA is up to date.

4) Between 1989 and 1992 USING YOUR 14 year old statistics; in the working ages, there were 3 million less Russian men and 682,000 less Russian women; if we extrapolate until 2006, there would be an enormous number of women over men. If these numbers duplicated then there would be 2.5 million more women than men in working ages today. Russia Males and females 1989 83,746,353 2002 88,941,569 Males 1989 43,440,058 2002 44,812,058 Females 1989 40,306,295 2002 44,129,511

Changes Males (3,133,763.00) Females (682,547.00)

5) These are YOUR own numbers which prove my point and discrediting the CIA over some so-called International Data Base is absurd. The CIA is certainly more authoritative and up to date.

6) From personal experience; In St. Petersburg I would estimate there were 50 % more women than men, Moscow was more even but still more women than men maybe 45%M-55%F, Penza was 40%M-60%F if that. The first night I was in Russia I slept with two women and we spent 3 nights in bed together. I knew one guy who said he had so much sex that his penis hurt.

7) You also have to think of quality as well. There are no "BBW" in Russia; that is very important. And I don't care what you say, Russian men have serious alcohol problems. They drink vodka like it was water. Russian men routinely beat their women. The quality of women in Russia is far superior than the garbage in this country and the quality and superiority of American men is well known and unquestionable.

• • • • Last Reply by Thoumsin (talk · contribs):

1) For the ratio, i use women and men in the working age ! For the rest, i almost agree with you...

2) Yes, men seeking Russian Bride are older but usually, they seek younger women. The problem is that Russian women marry very early and have children very early. From your reference age ( 25-34 year old ), a lot of women have already one child from previous marriage. This make it difficult for them to find a local men but several foreign men in the older age have already grow up child and are not ready to start again a parental function.

3) The more ridiculous statement. How can be the number of the CIA more accurate that these of the Russian census. Do you know what logistic and personal is needed for make a census! Never the CIA have make a census in other country, they use data from other. The last Russian census was in 2002, the next one is planned for 2012. All is based on the 2002 census make by Russian authorithy.

4) Again a strange method to use statistic. It is in the high section of the working age that men are not so much. If you like pronostic, take a look at table make by the US census at http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbpyrs.pl?cty=RS&out=s&ymax=250 . You can see that the difference are more in the older age. That with time, the pyramide become more inversed ( due to the lower birth rate in Russia ). In 2050, you will not have difference between sex until a age around 60 year old.

5) Why? Have the CIA a "army" who visit each country and count each people on the earth. The main function of the CIA is analyse extern information ( and verify that they are reliable ). Can you imagine the money needed, the personel needed and the time needed for the CIA to collect themself these information. Sorry but in all my live, i have never see a CIA agent at my door, asking information over my age, sex, language, composition of family, and more. Only my own gouvernement make this all the few years and CIA collect these public information.

6) Your personal experience? Do you have count women and men in St Petersburg and Moscow ? I don't think ! Maybe your regard was fixed on the sexy cute Russian women and you have forget see all the men around you!

And seriously, what have to make your sexual performance in Russia with the demographic question ?

7) Quality of women is not something to discuss. What you find a attractive lady can be horrible for a other people. I can assure you that a Turkish men will find attractif a fat American woman. In some culture, a fat women is sign of good mother. Usualy, guy seek Russian women for flee the feminist one of our western country. They think that they will find a submisive wife in ex-USSR. And of course, it is very bad know the russian character that find this!

I will not more argue here. I have give the info, i have give the links and i will change nothing to the article itself. The author of the article is free to use the info or ignore it. I have post in the talk section only in the goal to give information.

• Statement by Michaellovesnyc (talk · contribs):

• Statement by Michaellovesnyc: I disagree with this poll. I am new to wikipedia and this kaiwann may have hordes of friends here. But here is my argument and let us see if honesty, love and truth wins out.

1. Kaiwen's comment that the "demographics is speculation" is ridiculous and dishonest on its face. As Mark Twain said "Facts are stubborn things". It is a fact that there are millions more women than men in Russia and Ukraine. This is not speculation, it is a fact. This can be seen in the CIA fact book and other sources. How could it not be relevent in this discussion? Whenever there is an imbalance of men and women, love will find a way to get them together. And any Russian woman will testify that the Russian men drink too much and the CIA fact book (and many other sources) back me up on this. Alcohlism, violence and AIDs are primary reasons why there are so many more women than men. Sorry if you don't like it but facts are stubborn things !

2. Kaiwan also is lying or being reckless about African mail order brides; see http://www.africanprincess.com/. This proves beyond any doubt that he is dishonest or reckless. It took me exactly 3 seconds to find an African mail order bride web site. There are 3 million hits when I did a simple google search using those terms. If he is not dishonest, then certainly he is reckless in making such an absurd claim.

3. Kaiwen is also dishonest because he knows I deleted the anti fraud comments which I do believe were fair but took them out anyway. However, they found their way back in there somehow with all these reverts. I did take them out though.

4. If POV is to be taken out then lets take out all the stuff about how these foreigners are only looking to marry to improve their socio-economic status. It is racist and sexist. Why not say this about all women then? Would that be fair and is it not the perception that some people have? Is that not speculation??

Michael, your argument should focus on the validity of your edits, not whether Kaiwen is "lying". Anyway, let me clarify something: though it is a fact that there are more women than men in Russia, claiming without evidence that this is a cause of mail-order-brides is speculation. That is the distinction. "Whenever there is an imbalance of men and women, love will find a way to get them together" is absurdly inappropriate and not a supporting argument in any way. --The Famous Movie Director 05:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Kaiwen, You have a personal agenda that you are pushing and I have caught you in lie after lie. You cannot deny this. You have a racist and sexist agenda. It is not my FACTS that are inappropriate but your dishonesty. You argued, NOT ME, that there were no African mail order brides and I proved that there are 3 million web hits on the topic. It is quite evident that an imbalance of men and women will create a migration. In fact, mail order brides in America started out in such a way originally. I can, if you want, add more language to 'prove' this. But you are not really concerned about the truth anyway as the African mail order bride incident demonstrates. In fact, to show you up, I will make a point to fully demonstrate my facts. It is clearly self evident to anyone, but I will go one step further so you may connect the logical dots that anyone else would be able to do.

Also I do not see any purpose or validty putting in a section comparing it to other dating services; whats the point of this section?

I just added a picture of my hot mail-order bride... comments?

Only 3 of us look at this page????

OK so this poll isnt working too good; we got Kaiwen and 2 of his friends to oppose me; I took the anti fraud stuff out and wiki took out the picture of my beautiful mail order bride; actually i just dated her but didnt marry

• Its time to end this poll and debate. These guys are blatantly lying ("No African Mail order brides", "I said that demographics plays the only role", American women do not marry to improve their economic status, etc...), distorting statistics (Using age group of under 15 and excluding older women from analysis) and relying on questionable sources ("International Database" and chatroom discussions instead of CIA and Time Almanac and using numbers from 14 years ago). I can't stand liars. Never mind the poll. This discussion and my additional research to refute these lies proved to me and any fair minded person that my information is accurate and honest and no amount of factual evidence will change these peoples minds. I have provided a ton of statistical evidence, articles regarding the history of migration trends and my own personal observations. These people have supplied racist, sexist and ageist sterotypes backed up with 14 year old data, chatroom discussions, questionable sources, and blatant lies. Not once have they retracted or admitted to any one of their lies or admitted to using obsolete information. Worst of all, they will not confront their own racist, sexist and ageist agenda. And just one more piece of evidence on the mountain of facts that I have added, I added a USCIS quote where the women agree with my comments.*

- Comment by Thoumsin (talk · contribs): So, we are liars, racist, sexist, ageist! What a close mind we find here!

The questionable sources ( Internatinal Database ) are from the US goverment, from the Russian goverment and from the Ukrainian goverment. Numbers are from 2002 for Russia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census#Russia.2FUSSR ) and 2001 for Ukraine ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census#Ukraine ), date from the last census. Numbers from the CIA Hanbook are no wrong, they are identical to these of the census but they are limited to the range age 15-64 year old who don't represent the age range from bride of Russia :

ref USCIS : http://www.uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/repsstudies/Mobappa.htm "For the 1,700 Soviet women listed currently by Cherry Blossoms, just 8 percent are under 20, 23 percent between 21 and 25, 25 percent between 26 and 30, 20 percent from 31 to 35, 14 percent from 36 to 40, 7 percent aged 41 to 45, and 3 percent over 45."

So, it seem that the right age range to use is 18 to 45 year old. The CIA Hanbook, without be wrong, cannot show data for these age range. So, the use of the detailed data from census are needed.

You treat us of liar but our reference are at the origin of all demographic data. Your data are not wrong, simply not detailed enough and don't show the age range from the Mail Order Bride. My only agenda is to reveal the true and complet information but it hurt you because it go again your statement that "Demographics play a large role in the mail-order bride phenomenon".

About your CIA hanbook, the CIA only treat data from several source and compile it in the hanbook. At http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/contributor_copyright.html , you can read : "Information is provided by Antarctic Information Program (National Science Foundation), Bureau of the Census..." . So, it prove that the CIA use our "questionable sources" ( census ).

I really hope that some wiki administrator will remove the Demographics section who is based on a myth and limited analyse of data.

Demographics

Look, it doesn't matter whether there are more women than men in Russia or not. We are not arguing about that, and we never were. What is important is whether this is a cause for the number of mail-order brides. That's all! Cause and effect! X leads to Y! We either find a reference that says that, or remove the demographics section! Do you understand? --The Famous Movie Director 23:36, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Thoumsin (talk · contribs): Why not change the "Demographics" by "why the Russian women are looking for husbands abroad?" followed by something like :

"The answer is: they want to have good husbands. Russian men just can't make good husbands. Russian men are nice but Russian traditions of family life are not. When one grows up in a society, he acts according its rules and traditions. It's not because he is bad, it's just natural. You can't live in a society and be free of its rules and customs.

The objective reasons why Russians can't make good husbands are alcohol http://english.pravda.ru/print/society/family/4388-alcoholism-0 , abuse http://english.pravda.ru/print/society/family/21-03-2006/77617-violence-0 , and their poor health conditions http://www.cdi.org/russia/271-21.cfm . All have their roots in the society life. Women of 18 years old have no problems with finding appropriate partners of their age, and most of them do. The problems start later. The society and life conditions push men towards alcohol addiction, which cause in its turn problems with health. There are, of course, men who are healthy and take good care of their families, but they usually get married early and stay married.

There is also such a reason as demographic disproportion between men and women. Women outnumber men, and though this difference is not really huge (3-7% according to different issues), it gives a big absolute number of lonely women, who have zero chances to find a life partner. The demographic disproportion also does not take place in the age group 18-25 years old, and starts from the age of 30 and up http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/English/1-8.xls .

The statement that all Russian women would be happy to escape Russia for the better life on the West is also grossly exaggerated. As far as know, dating agencies have a permanent but limited flow of new applicants. Many women sign with a few agencies. According estimations, it's not more than 100 000 women who are featured by different agencies, including Russian local marriage agencies. Some of the women have already got married, gave up their search or found a partner in Russia.

The majority of single women don't consider finding a husband abroad as an option. Even if they can't find a partner in their homeland, they would never leave Russia. Many women who signed up with agencies, do not perform an intensive search and have this way only as one of options. It's particularly true towards young women under 25 years old.

Population of Russia is about 150 million people with 77-80 millions women. Thus, the share of women trying to find a foreign husband is not more than 0.13% of the total number, and only about 0.5% of the number of single women. As I already said, for a big part of them signing with agencies is just a try, and they do not consider this opportunity as a real option."

=> Only a project of text, more moderated and more neutral. Can be changed and certainly add more link to source

Vote

Do you vote to Remove or Keep the disputed material?

• Remove. Gavin 17:33, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep the truthful demographics and stop ignorant racist and sexist sterotypes. Michaellovesnyc
• Remove. --The Famous Movie Director 05:17, 22 May 2006
• Remove the personal anti-fraud Just my opinion -- I'm sorry that the author had a bad experience. That doesn't mean everybody should be advised to go to such extremes. As for the demographics, I'm a bit confused about what is being voted on. I will say that it is true that former USSR countries have an excess of women. And I don't think the African counterexample carries much weight, because men are of course going to be reluctant to look in a place with such an enormous HIV rate. -- William Jockusch

(UTC)

• Modify the demographics Not true that former USSR have an excess of women in the marriage range find in the MOB ( Mail Order Brides ) agency. Thoumsin (talk · contribs)
• Keep. Redrum48 (talk · contribs)
• Remove material does not appear to hold a NPOV. -- ^Evanx(tag?) 22:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
• Modify Agencies make the assertion that ratio imbalance and socio-economic factors are reasons why women join the services. The demographic stats are relevant in light of those claims, but forthrightly attributing cause and effect is improper.--Son of Somebody 12:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Vote to prohibit anonymous edits

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Problems of Accuracy and Intent

This article seems to reflect an entirely opinion-based intepretation of mail order brides. None of the statements seem to be documentable, and there is something vaguely racist about some of its assertions, i.e. that East Asian brides are "ordered" by recent Asian imigrants who "for cultural reasons" cannot find a bride, and it downplays the significance of the mail order bride phenomenon stemming from women in Eastern Europe which is the fastest-growing and most endemic group in North America. In addition, whoever wrote this article has apparently not conducted a serious study of mail order brides making this article a potentially unreliable and suspicious source of "facts." I would recommend that it be stricken and that someone else propose a serious article on mail order brides. It is interesting enough a topic that a significant number of people might read it, making the current article insufficient as a source of information.

The term "mail-order bride" itself is highly pejorative, used by bigots to stereotype people. I doubt that this article is redeemable at all. I think it should be a candidate for deletion.

Unfortunately, while the term itself has its (not insubstantial) faults, there isn't a suitable term that's neutral and descriptive without also being hopelessly generic. Even those who are involved with the process (selling travel, addresses and the like) are forced to use the term at times just to distinguish this from the usual domestic matchmaking agencies who claim to find "companions", "introductions" and the like. --carlb 05:33, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I've heard the term "International Dating" used. Although, I personally think the term "Mail-order bride" is best, despite the negative connotation it can have.

24.45.47.102 15:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC) There is a strong attempt here by feminists to insist on lying. For example,they even deleted that IMBRA has been STOPPED by a Federal Court restraining order; this is a fact that they are trying to hide. They edit this article and state that American men are abusers WITHOUT any supporting documentation or facts; unless AMERICAN men are MORE abusive than foreign men, this is not an honest fact that should be posted here. This is supposed to be FACT BASED, not opinion based 24.45.47.102 15:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc 24.45.47.102 15:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

POV problems

Well, it's too bad that "mail order bride" is the encompassing moniker for any relationship between a woman from a second- or third-world country and a man from a developed country---but, alas, it is. I am married to a woman from such a country. The reputation of such unions is problematic, but there's a "cover for every kettle" as one homily goes. Ours is not a fairy-tale union at all; it is but another union among many. After a couple has met online across the miles and the waters, that couple is on their own in the same way as every other couple. (Egad! USA-USA couplings are as fraught with failure as any.) Perhaps it's also a case of getting what you need, as opposed necessarily to what you want. As a guy who's never really had difficulty attracting women generally, it is nevertheless true that in the USA I would find it difficult at middle age to find a woman who'd accept me . . . young enough to start a family. The Western attitude of acceptance with respect to larger age differences is simply not extant, practically. As for machiavellian motives on either side of the coupling, the current visa process---fiancée or spousal---is only just shy of a bona fide ordeal I'd not wish on anybody . . . and any couple who's made it through that gauntlet has probably demonstrated much more than a soupçon of compatibility. ---PLK

Certainly not neutral (or factual) in some cases. for instance, "Once they are married and often before they are even settled into their new lives they are beaten by their husbands." states that EVERY SINGLE ONE is beaten by her husband, which I refuse to believe without convincing evidence. The actual percentage that suffer some type of domestic abuse is unknown, but there are documented cases of the "mail order bride" falsely claiming abuse to get a divorce while retaining the right to remain in the country. Of course, the number of reported incidents is almost certainly lower than the actual. Also, I've noticed that articles showing statistics on abuse of "mail order brides" almost invariably fail to show the normal abuse statistics for both the area of origin and the area of the new residence. --RLH

The article has some serious anti-mail order bride POV issues. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 20:41, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The term itself is POV. After all it implies an entirely commercial union rather than an emotional one. --CVaneg 20:20, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some other words to describe these services are "introduction service," "correspondence service," etc. Those don't seem very descriptive though. Rad Racer | Talk 02:11, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Recommend moving the article to Marriage service and redirecting Mail-order bride etc. MFNickster

I agree this article has some serious anti-MOB bias. What is really needed is to get 2 people on opposite sides of the issue to come up with an article that both feel represents both sides adequately.

I've started doing a bit of NPOV fixing. I've also marked some unsourced material as disputed. If it's not cited soon then it should be deleted. Blackcats 16:42, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I've tossed these bits of text through Google and the original pages typically are trivial to find. I've linked them for reference, but have nonetheless left just one of the "see talk page" tags in place (up top at the start of the whole article). I do find it strange that all the {{dubious}} tags are in the "pitfalls" section of the article, while there are many missing links to source material in other sections, including the "defence" portion. There are a few (but too few!) good, informative sites out there (asawa.org and womenrussia.com come to mind), but the majority of related sites out there are indeed intended primarily to sell addresses or services - or else they're politicised enough (equating this to commodifying women, people trafficing or worse) to make Uncyclopedia: Mail-order bride appear factual, neutral and balanced by comparison.

Yes, the term itself is awkward - is a "mail-order bride" someone whose prospective spouse has no ties whatsoever to her country other than the use of an "introduction service", as distinguished from the various other family-class immigrants such as fiancé(e)s of soldiers serving abroad or fiancé(e)s of recent immigrants from the same country? The agency terms like "penpal introduction bureau" are worse, as what they gain in political correctness they lose in (already ambiguous) meaning, with the terms being so vague that agency sites still have to contain the old "mail-order bride" term just to be findable in search engines. There isn't a good, descriptive, well-defined and neutral term, which is unfortunate.

I don't expect the POV tag to be removed anytime soon, if ever. The topic is one that evokes too many emotions. Besides, claims like "current visa process---fiancée or spousal---is only just shy of a bona fide ordeal" are relative - yes this is way more difficult than marrying the gal next door, no the family-class applicants don't have to deal with half of what prospective independent immigrants (ie: ones being considered only because they have skills we need) have to face, both in insane bureaucratic delays and in hoops to jump through before being accorded immigrant status. All depends on your POV - and there might not be any guarantee of being able to find truly neutral ground. *sigh* --carlb 20:07, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I will try to fix some of the POV issues on it, I have spent just the last month or so researching this topic, but already I am noting some inaccuracies in the article that I am trying to go about and fix. Com2kid 00:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

I went on one of the tours with one of the agencies and I was very pleased with their services. YES many women are scammers that do it but what woman isn't ? At least those women are extremely obvious. Then there are remarkably charming girls that are delightful and kind. I am also the victim of an immigration scam from a girl who was NOT a mail order bride. I am in New York and I have known dozens of illegals and so I know how difficult their plight is. I know many Russians, Filipinas, South Americans, etc... Some are sincere and some are not. So I have seen all sides of this issue. I will try to fix up the POV as well. It is certainly not true that all these women are beaten and including the ONE incident as "proof" of widespread abuse is sickening. ALSO - I have invented the abbreviation MOB for "Mail Order Bride" - Michael - michaellovesnyc@aol.com

Firstly Michael, according to Wikipedia policy, please sign your posts on talk pages by typing this: --~~~~ at the end. That will add your username (or IP if you are not logged in) and the time and date, as you can see at the end of most of these comments. Secondly, inventing abbreviations is not what we do here. Wikipedia style reflects common usage. It might be more cumbersome to type out "mail-order bride" each time but it's better than inventing an abbreviation. Finally, in regard to your comment "YES many women are scammers that do it but what woman isn't ?" I implore you to read the Neutral Point of View page before making any further contributions. What woman isn't a scammer? I for one am not a scammer, and I am wary of the quality of contributions of anyone who espouses such views. So keep your misogyny to yourself, and don't let it enter the Wikipedia article. Also, in an encyclopedic article, adult women must be referred to as women, or "young women" if you want. Calling them "girls" implies that they are underage. --The Famous Movie Director 11:06, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The MOB term isn't something new or invented here, however as "the Mob" is normally used to refer to "Mafia Inc. A division of Cosa Nostra Corporation, A Black Hand Enterprises company..." it's even worse in terms of POV than "mail-order bride", hence not a solution to the lack of any usable neutral terminology out there. A (now defunct) parody site that claimed to find Canadian gals for American lads used the "We're the Canadian MOB" line, but likely as a joke to exploit the double-meaning of MOB as the business of organised crime. --carlb 04:52, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The marriage success statistics were deleted despite having extremely strong support from the USCIS study; and there is a ridiculous barrage of so-called "concerns" that appears in no other category of dating; a concern that men are rapists and abusers without any evidence or support should not be in here. Michaellovesnyc There is sufficient coverage of this in the IMBRA section

Former Soviet Union and crime?

I noticed that this was removed from the FSU section of this article:

"Unfortunately, the widespread organised crime problems in these countries have led to many scams and frauds using false photos and tricking prospective suitors into sending money. There have been a small number of arrests but the problems are far from resolved."

All of the external sites linked as sources in this para appear to still be live; any reason why this was pulled out of the text? --carlb 22:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Russian brides

I distinctly recall several months ago someone fairly high up in the Russian duma or whatever they call their parliment proposed that they try to stop Russian women marrying foreign men (no talk of Russian men marrying foreign women tho) since they were supposedly one of Russian's great assests The plan was to punish/discourage Russian women from marrying foreign men by repossessing money, property etc and removing citizenship etc of said Russian women. I don't know if they are really doing anything about this or it was just one of those foot in mouth comments that are never mentioned ever again but regardless, I think it is worthy of inclusion in this article... 60.234.141.76 04:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

The pursuit of the so-called "mysterious Russian soul" usually translates to taking advantage of economically and socially disadvantaged women in Russia and other post-Soviet republics by men from "first world" nations. "Mysterious Russian soul" is a euphemism for finding a woman who will cook, clean, and put up with matters most American women wouldn't.

 FSU internet brides and agencies

The wikipedia article has positive and negative aspects but the fact is that in the last 5 years, Russian/FSU internet bride scams and scam agencies have gone through the roof. Because of the lack of control and regulation of internet bride agencies in Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the FSU countries ( but the scammers seem to hail from Russia and Ukraine mostly ) scammers are free to flourish and plunder Western men while Russian etc. authorities do little or in most cases nothing to stop it. The whole internet bride industry in relation to Eastern Women from the Soviet is very tarnished with a poor reputation and so is scamming and misinformation about these ladies spread by internet marriage agencies for profit and financial gain is rife. I can find very little positive in the FSU internet bride industry. As political corruption and living standards erode in such countries as the Ukraine, my opinion is the scamming will become worse and more sophisticated because of the poor socio economic outlook of these countries. Most wealth in the FSU is concentrated in the hands of the very few and priveleged ( Moscow has more billionaires than just about any other major city in the world..I believe it has 33! ) and the econmoic outlook and lifestyle for the majority of Soviet people is poor with little hope for the future which can only encourage and breed scamming. Its not going to get better. I agree witht the thrust of the Wikopedia article..finding an FSU bride on the internet is a very risky proposition indeed and very expensive and any man contemplating it needs to investigate and investigate and to check out the "girl" to see if she is real and tread very carefully as there are many pitfalls and dangers! John..Australia 21st November 2005

Single Women and Visas

However the State Department has made it very difficult for young single women to obtain tourist visas to the United States from many countries because of the high rates of visa fraud and thus, their only opportunity to come to the United States is by obtaining the sponsorship of a potential spouse or employer. Is this true? Do women really have a hard time coming to the United States as tourists if they're single? I've never heard of this. Is this also the case for Western European, Japanese, or Australian women who are unlikely to be in the United States as mail-order brides? Rhesusman 18:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

It is true of certain countries of origin, usually poor countries. Citizens of most countries in Western Europe would qualify for the visa waiver programme for visits of 90 days or less, so wouldn't have to deal with this. Those who come from countries which are not in any way visa-exempt, however, have to prove that they have not only economic means but ties to their own country which would cause them to return. Not an easy process for many; any previous rejections will be held against the applicant when making future consular enquiries. Those with a university education, a passport from some wealthy country, a successful business and a fistful of dollars may find it easy to travel to the US, but it somehow doesn't quite work that way for everyone else. --carlb 05:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is extremely difficult for single Asian women to get visas to the United States, except those who get "professional" visas. One friend of mine told me that her sister was unable to get a visa to come speak at a symposium, despite the fact that the sister was in her 40s, owner of a chain of very successful businesses in the Philippines, and for years had made numerous trips as a motivational speaker at meetings in Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia. Critic-at-Arms 18:47, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Lead section way too long

The lead section is way, way too long. See MoS. Scott Ritchie 19:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Gay mail-order husbands?

I removed the following:

There is also a growing field of gay men who are turning to the internet to find their significant others and they may also fall prey to misrepresentations by their potential male partners who fail to disclose important facts to them before they immigrate or change their lifestyle for a foreign born mate; this is particularly true in countries such as Canada that now allow homosexuals to marry and sponsor their unmarried homosexual partners for immigrant visas.

Besides the awful, awful writing style, it sounds to me like this person is simply referring to "meeting a partner on the Internet"--not the industry there seems to be around "mail-order brides". If anyone can point to a "mail-order husband" website, it should be documented properly. --The Famous Movie Director 00:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

In a somewhat related vein, there is a link to an article exploring the lack of Mail-Order Husbands, which appears to be a self-serving link to a ponderously-written article which is really of no help whatever.--24.196.175.110 09:31, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup needed

Run-on sentences, unsourced generalizations, terribly unclear, POV, sexist ("ladies"?), awful in almost every way. I made a couple little improvements before I realized that the whole thing was a big mess. It's a shame because this is a potentially fascinating topic that deserves a write-up of feature-article quality.

What is a mail-order bride? In the very first sentence, it's "a term often used to describe women who come to a foreign land from a less developed area after only correspondence or short meeting with their eventual mate." Surely that's not quite it. Let's start with a proper definition that's accurate, addresses popular conceptions of a "mail-order bride" and makes sense. The legality of the whole thing should also be a major concern. --The Famous Movie Director 00:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Lead in edited

I've edited the lead in paragraph to try and make it clearer, more neutral, and better constructed. Over the next week, I will try to dig up citations for other sections and see if those areas can be cleaned a bit.

Paul 00:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

• The terms 'solicitor' and 'solicited' seem both awkward and one-sided, so I question whether this is much of an improvement. Oh well... --carlb 00:02, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Split Marriage Agency into a separate article because...

...it's a different thing and requires separate treatment. Also, I'm editing this article extensively for NPOV.-Gavin 21:31, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Just finished the bulk of editing. The article is much smaller but NPOV is established. Please discuss before reverting deleted material. Thanks. -Gavin 01:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Time line of the industry

In the 1930s, marriage agencies sprang up to send out English wives to colonials, starved of the company of their female compatriots in far flung outposts of empire.

The 1960s saw the advent of Dateline which used primitive personality testing to pair people up.

Ms Mooney started up her agency, Sara Eden, in the 1980s, when many were too busy making dosh to make love.

Sara Eden is a small, traditional and select agency, which matches people through personal introductions and charges between £700 and £5,000 depending on the level of attention required.

"I wanted to appeal to people like myself, like my friends who couldn't meet people, not because they were social misfits or because they were quiet or shy, but because they were actually spending more time on their careers," Ms Mooney says. [1]

POV

04:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC) If people want to eliminate "POV" defense that American men are not abusers, then any reference to them being abusers be removed as well; there is no evidence whatsoever that men are abusers; no evidence that men abuse mail order brides more than American wives, no evidence that mail order brides are abused more in America than in Phillipines, Russia or Ukraine; If references are made to American men as abusers, it should ONLY be listed in the "sterotype" section with the aricle defending them as not being abusers included; you can't have it both ways; be fair and be impartial or include both sides of the story - michaellovesnyc 04:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is it even relevant to include the sections "Feminist fraud" and the results of the study? Seems like an example of using Wikipedia to prove a point. CountZ 02:33, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 19:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC) Likewise why is it relevent to include "Misrepresentations" and include misrepresentation by men and to include the IMBRA law that portrays men as abusers? You have to do one of two things: 1) Be completely neutarl or 2) Present both sides of the issues. If you are going to bring up the idea that men are abusers, then you have to allow a counter view point to be fair. Take out all the anti mail order bride propaganda and the POV issue will go away. Just be fair either way. 19:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc 19:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Is anyone claiming the concern about spousal abuse is based primarily on US men being more abusive than those from some other country? I'd suspect the concerns are more likely based on the possibility that the foreign "introductions" services could become a dumping ground for those rejected as potential mates (for whatever reason) by their own compatriots. Add to this the stereotypes (such as the "(name of country) women are docile, feminine and obedient" cliché used to sell addresses from various places) and the concern that an abusive spouse could threaten to have a foreign-born mate deported, and the potential for problems does exist. The long-distance relationship aspect of this also makes it that little bit more difficult to find out what someone is really like up-front. There certainly are pitfalls, to edit the text to selectively remove (or dispute) all reference to the existence of these risks is indeed POV. There has been plenty of agenda-pushing here, technically not vandalism but at the same time not neutral. --carlb 03:07, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

The quality of this article has been destroyed. Can we revert?

Several weeks ago this article looked like this. It was accurate and conformed to Wiki standards. Now it's terrible and has lost all semblance of NPOV. I recommend we revert and get this thing back on track. How about an agree/disagree vote? -Gavin 16:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree -Gavin 16:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree, but it needs close supervision. I've been watching this page (not editing much, though) for months. A lot of users seem to be pushing a pro-mail-order-bride slant, with the overtone that mail-order brides are better than your brash, loud, angry, feminist American women. Let's not make any assumptions about the character of all women from country X, please. Oh yeah, and we need sources for everything. Currently there's a paragraph about how the Philippines has outlawed the practice since 1990, yet there are several references to Filipina brides in the rest of the article. Are there illegal agencies operating there, or what? I put a cleanup tag on this article months ago, when it was much worse--the weird thing is that I'd followed the link from an external site where someone was singing this article's praises. --The Famous Movie Director 08:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Is it any better to have the current anti-mail-order-bride slant? Where's the attribution for the Concerns section (which has had all disputation removed)? Why is all reference to the motivation for seeking a foreign spouse gone? As it reads now, it appears that only abusers and criminals look for foreign brides (though they somehow manage an 80% success rate in their marriages). The Philippines outlawed marriage agencies, not marriage to foreign men, and most of those marriages have been from friend or family referral, according to the State Department and BCIS. If you don't understand the issue, why are you editing it? Critic-at-Arms 05:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching this page since I put a cleanup tag on the article when it was in a much worse state. No, I'm not an expert on the issue--I don't even have an opinion one way or the other--but I'm bright enough to know when things are badly written, and I have rarely edited the article except for style considerations (I had to change patronizing language like "ladies" to "women" and so on). I don't think it currently has an anti-mail-order-bride slant, and I'm certainly not pushing for one. Since you seem to know something about it--are marriages between Western men and Filipina women to be considered "mail order bride" relationships even though they're not "officially" allowed? Exactly how are they arranged--what is a "reverse publication"? (Are you the one who made that edit? That's the sort of work the article needs.) --The Famous Movie Director 22:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

+One issue with adding paragraphs about "motivation" for seeking a foreign spouse and so on is that we're just speculating, and we risk sounding biased, until we can find research about the topic. There's a significant difference between sentences like "Many men prefer Asian women because they are more humble and obedient" (which is the sort of thing the article used to say) and "A study by so-and-so found that 40% of men seeking Asian brides did so because they saw Asian women as humble and obedient." That is the sort of evidence we need. If there's no study like that available, though, discussing motivation is dicey territory. --The Famous Movie Director 22:11, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Critic-at-Arms makes an excellent point; I have attended these events and the men are not abusers and criminals as this article makes them out to be; it is obviously slanted against mail order brides and bashes the men that go to meet them; it is quite disgusting; there is plenty of discussion of these so-called "concerns in the legal areas ~~michaellovesnyc

Famous -- to paraphrase Patton the Elder, I may be committing the greatest heresy by commenting on the issue of seeking foreign brides, as I have in fact decided only to date Asian and Pacific Islander ladies. Many of my friends are in Fil-Western marriages, and their rate of success has prompted me to pretty much give up on American women ("Kana"), while being introduced (often by correspondence) to friends and relatives of my Pinay friends. My motivation is that American women are raised in a culture which no long stigmatizes divorce, and in fact considers it a normal part of relationships. Filipinas are raised in a culture where there is no divorce, so they learn to make their marriages succeed, if their husband cooperates. Every so often some guy comes on the various websites devoted to intercultural relationship issues, surprised that the Filipinas he's met don't fit the "submissive" label often put onto them. Not one of the Pinay I've met or swapped correspondence with could be considered submissive, though some may call them "obedient" because they might go along to get along on one issue -- however, they then expect the same from their husbands on other issues. If Filipinas are humble, it's from knowing that they can afford to be. Several of the Filipinas that I've known had been in bad or abusive relationships, but this number seems to be about the American average.

The article was VERY anti-foreign-bride. To answer your question, "reverse publication" is the magazines and websites which give Pinay information about men, from which they might choose to make contact with potential mail-order husbands. The rise of singles websites has made this easier -- such sites are not "mail-order" sites, but instead are considered "means of social contact."

The fact of the matter is that so-called "mail-order brides" have an 80% marital success rate in the United States, compared to a rate of about 50% for American women. Obviously, this is a system which WORKS in four out of five cases. Critic-at-Arms 18:37, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Advocating Criminal Behaviour

Prior to my edit, the article encouraged the American spouse to lock up the marriage certificate and other documents, and to read the correspondence of the spouse. In addition to these blatantly illegal activities, it also encourages unethical behavior such as preventing the spouse from accumulating evidence of the bona fide status of the marriage (evidence the couple woud need for the two year review,) and immediately resorting to legal action as the response to any sort of argument from the foreign spouse. Wikipedia is not here to hand out anti-fraud advice as it is, but this is reprehensible.

Rest of the world

It's not just American men who use these agencies - is this article a little USA-centric? I will try to find some UK statistics especially on abuse as mail-order brides are not uncommon here. Meanwhile does every reference to the man have to be "American"? Wsbhopkin 19:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Would we say that they are usually Western, then? I would think Canada, Australia etc have mail order brides too. But is the practice limited to the West? I'd say go ahead and change it, but before you make too many edits, you should vote on whether we should revert to the version of a few weeks ago, as being discussed just above. --The Famous Movie Director 03:18, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Deleting large sections of text

Please don't make huge indiscriminate deletions just because you disagree with some of the content. A large part of the text Michaellovesnyc deleted earlier this edit was relevant information. For example. What's wrong with comparing this practice to other matchmaking forms? Classified listings and arranged marriages are real, and surely the article needs mention of them to avoid confusion. Likewise, the concerns section reflects commonly perceived concerns about the practice, such as women finding it difficult to adapt to their new country. If you're worried about the validity of a specific claim, add the "citation needed" tag or research it yourself--don't just make large deletions. --The Famous Movie Director 03:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I wrote most this article from the top to the country listings (including the comparison material). It's a little frustrating to have to revert so many Michaellovesnyc edits, but I think he's getting better. The comparison stuff is obviously useful. It'll go back in and once Michaellovesnyc stares at it for a while, his comfort factor will go up. One of my closest friends owns a marriage agency in Ukraine. I lived there and worked with her and hundreds of mail-order brides every day for two years, so my understanding of this topic is fairly expert. :) -Gavin 13:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc Why not practice what you preach? Constantly insulting and degrading the men and womwn that use mail order agencies is not acceptable where are the "citations" that women are abused and men are using them; why do my posts that include citations constantly keep getting deleted ? Either have NO POV or have BOTH POV; you can't have a POV without the other side having a voice

OK Deal made between Gavin and me: The ridiculous "Concerns" section is removed and the "Comparisons" section stays in although I don't see the relevency of that section; comparing beautiful young mail order brides to the garbage you meet on match.com is like comparing Filet Mignon to McDonalds; but OK; I make the deal

"But I'm a superstitious man. And if some unlucky accident should befall this page - or if it's struck by a bolt of lightning, them I'm going to blame some of the people in this room, and that I do not forgive. But, that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we've made here today." Michaellovesnyc michaellovesnyc

Hey Gavin; did you marry a beautiful mail order bride? Are any of them sincere? I was married to a commie but she wasnt a mail order bride; decided to go check it out; cant do any worse than what I did; I had a great time in St Pete last year

I dated around a bit but didn't marry. You'll find plenty of sincere people and insincere ones too, just like in your country. The difference is that when you're dating in foreign country, you're the cute guy that can hardly speak the language. It's like an Italian guy who lands in Canada. He might be dork at home, but he's a hot commodity abroad. That opens a lot of doors. But Kharkov, Ukraine is unrivaled in one respect. It has the highest percentage of beautiful women anywhere in the world. I know that's a subjective statement, but I've been pretty much everywhere and every guy I know who's been there says the same...even Russians. The first week I was there my eyeballs almost melted. -Gavin 00:54, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I thought large sections of text were not supposed to be deleted just because one did not agree with what it said. The sections regarding notable cases of abuse are highly relevant to the reasons why this entire topic is so controversial and you cannot really have an article about this topic without them. The sole reason that this topic is controversial and that there are any "legal issues" associated with this topic at all is that the laws at issue were passed to address the abuse issue -- so you cannot pretend its not there. Without mentioning the abuse issue, then the article loses its POV because it describes laws that appear to be unfair and draconian -- it is only when the reasons for the law are brought into the light that the article achieves balance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.33.186.81 (talk • contribs)

In this case the main reason that material was deleted was because it lacked references. I see that you've put it back with references added--I appreciate your doing the legwork; not enough users bother. I do feel that the question of abuse is one that must be addressed, if only because people tend to associate mail-order brides with dominant, abusive relationships--whether or not this is generally true (and of course it isn't universally true). I'm concerned, though, that the gory details might be a bit sensational and inappropriate for the legal issues section. I think it should be pruned down--and perhaps all the IMBRA stuff should be moved into a subsection. What do other editors think? --Grace 14:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Lists or tips

Would it be a worthy addition to list tips to avoid fraud in a search for a mail order bride? Might not be possible to directly list good companies, as that would be biased, but maybe some general tips and things to look for in an agency and what not, the right questions to ask, the right verification and license the agency should have, etc. Maybe there are already watchdogs for this sort of thing that could be mentioned. I'm also curious if a general but detailed outline of the process would be possible, or is that beyond the scope of this article, or Wikipedia?

Proposals for restructured article (please contribute)

This article still needs a lot of work. These are things that I think might be added to the article to improve it. I'm focusing on what someone might want to know if they came to the page for research. Please add your suggestions below mine.

• First of all, the introduction should have a mention of the controversy of the issue. Perhaps then the main article could address controversial issues more openly.

• How about pictures? The article is text-heavy. Either a photo of a real mail-order bride and her husband, or a picture of someone portraying a mail-order bride in a movie, or a famous mail-order bride (any famous mail-order bride would probably be a victim of some kind, so that might be too negative).

• What is a mail-order bride agency? A section about what marriage agencies do and how the whole process works (keeping in mind that Wikipedia is not a how-to guide). Most websites that advertise mail-order brides perpetuate sexist and racist stereotypes. They "recommend" women from country X because these women are "feminine" and "obedient", and so on (I've seen a fair few of these websites now). This is not an objective truth or even an acceptable generalization, nowadays. Let's not ignore that these organizations are blatantly sexist and racist.

• Sections about the motivation for becoming or seeking a mail-order bride. I think this helps contextualise and make sense of the practice. It's not a simple matter of romance. For example: many women want to escape various bad conditions in their homeland; many of these men are frustrated with the women or dating system of their own country. Cite sources, though, like this article.

• Leading on from this, more extensive discussion of the prevalence of abuse. It's far from universal, but it exists. This is quite objectively a major concern because the numerous academic articles about mail-order brides usually focus on abuse. Someone who visits the Wikipedia article might be a sociology student looking for that information. Of course, this section should specify that reported cases of abuse are in the minority. The marriage success statistics part could follow from that (although divorce rate is arguably problematic as a measure of "success", especially here, when women might stay in an unhappy marriage because they are in a foreign culture and don't know where else to go).

• Legality stuff that's already in the article, but it could be expanded.

• Anything else? --The Famous Movie Director 06:48, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Third opinion on demographics section

Someone asked for a third opinion on the demographics section. In my opinion, it seems to be speculation, not verified information. Speculation on what might cause the phenomenon is original research, and therefore not our job here at Wikipedia. The section should be promptly removed unless citations from a reputable source can be found.

I also caution editors to be careful about voting. Wikipedia is not a democracy; we work by consensus. If you must count noses, use a poll to take the temperature of the group. But don't make it about "winning"; use it to find a way to bring everybody into consensus. --William Pietri 07:01, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Comment by Michaellovesnyc

• Michaellovesnyc 13:31, 26 May 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc - I would like to end this already. Obviously some people will refuse to agree regardless of the mountain of evidence provided and will distort facts and statistics regardless of the source or how old they are. I am suggesting leaving out any connotation that demographics plays a role and incorporate it into the history or the comparison sections and let readers just know the facts and make their own judgment.

I do not think the history section makes sense to have it there. I would think that the first thing you do in describing something is describing the origin of the word. Does this not make sense?

I also do not see the purpose of comparing it to other matchmaking services or having its own section. Why can't we just incorporate this in the main body?

I ask that we stop reverting each others changes and resolve our differences by agreement here. I am willing to compromise to make this article look nice and provide good information.

I really do not think adding anything about gays adds anything to the article. If someone could somehow explain how they think it does, I would be willing to listen to any reasonable explanation.

Recent edits discussing mail-order bride abuse court cases

I'm of the opinion that this material does not belong in the article. Certainly abuses occur in marriages, even murders. This phenomenon is not unique to mail-order brides. The entries infer that abuse is common. If this inference is fact, then we need supporting data to show this. If it is not fact, then these inference raised is inappropriate. It's analagous to adding a string of murder cases in the article on marriage. It's misleading. Comments anyone? Gavin 17:25, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain again why this information belongs in this article. If there is to be any discussion whatsover regarding United States legislation to regulate international marriage brokers (the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act of 2005 -IMBRA), then you have to explain why the law was enacted. You cannot maintain a NPOV by saying, that there are extensive regulations governing the formation of mail order bride marriages in the United States that do not exist with regard to the formation of other marriages without explaining why the government of the United States draws a distinction. The fact is, the only real "legal issues" associated with mail order brides are the issues surrounding abuse. That's just the way it is -- they are actually the same thing. Even though it is true that abuses occur in marriages of all types, the Congress of the United States was especially concerned about abuses in these types of relationships because these women are unfamilliar with the laws, language, and customs of the United States. That's why there has been over a decade of legislation passed to protect these women. In 1996, in passing the "Mail Order Bride Act," (which IMBRA replaced) Congress made explicit findings that there are unique problems with these marriages:

"(a) Findings

     The Congress finds as follows:
       (1) There is a substantial "mail-order bride" business in the
     United States. With approximately 200 companies in the United
     States, an estimated 2,000 to 3,500 men in the United States find
     wives through mail-order bride catalogs each year. However, there
     are no official statistics available on the number of mail-order
     brides entering the United States each year.
       (2) The companies engaged in the mail-order bride business earn
     substantial profits.
       (3) Although many of these mail-order marriages work out, in
     many other cases, anecdotal evidence suggests that mail-order
     brides find themselves in abusive relationships. There is also
     evidence to suggest that a substantial number of mail-order
     marriages are fraudulent under United States law.
       (4) Many mail-order brides come to the United States unaware or
     ignorant of United States immigration law. Mail-order brides who
     are battered often think that if they flee an abusive marriage,
     they will be deported. Often the citizen spouse threatens to have
     them deported if they report the abuse.  Title 8 United States Code, Section 1375

I have no objections to putting it all in a separate subheading on IMBRA, but I don't think you can escape that this is the entire reason why there are any "legal issues" surrounding mail order brides at all. The only other entry under this subheading in this article is the Phillipines law which is designed to address the very same issue.

Also, at least six states have passed there own versions of IMBRA (if you want me to link to those, I would be happy to do so). The point is, these issues are at the core of the entire mail order bride debate.

I would like to see the 6 state laws. I find this very hard to believe, and even harder to enforce because immigration is purely a federal issue.

Here they are...let me know if you need me to give you actual links, or if you can do the internet searches for them yourself...each has citations:

• WA. REV. CODE § 19.220.010 requires “Each international matchmaking organization doing business in Washington state shall disseminate to

a [foreign] recruit . . . state background check information and personal history information relating to any Washington state resident about whom any information is provided to the recruit, in the recruit’s native language. . . . the Washington state resident shall obtain from the state patrol and provide to the organization the complete transcript of any background check . . . based on a submission of fingerprint impressions and . . . shall provide to the organization his or her personal history information.”

• HAW. REV. STAT. § 489N-2 requires IMBs to “notify all recruits that criminal history record information and marital history information is available upon request” and upon such request to obtain from the client a “complete transcript of any criminal history record or a statement that there is no record of convictions.”

• MO. REV. STAT. § 566.221 makes it a felony for client of IMB to fail to “obtain a copy of his or her own criminal history record nformation; Providethe criminal history record information to the international marriage broker; and Provide to the international marriage broker his or her own marital history information” or providing false information therein.

• TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE ANN. § 35.122 requires IMB to “provide each recruit with the criminal history record information and marital history

information of its clients and with basic rights information.”

• California has legislation pending to regulate IMBs (AB 634) that passed the Assembly in 2005 and is awaiting a hearing before the Business

and Professions Committee of the California Senate. The bill proposes a licensure scheme that, among other things, requires that brokers themselves submit to criminal background checks.

Also, I just reverted Michaellovesnyc's wholesale deletion of text --- text that was referenced and is the subject of this current debate. Hasn't Michaellovesnyc violated wiki policy enough that official action can be requested?? I don't want to get into a war over this -- I have better things to do with my time. I leave it to the knowledgable editors to decide whether the complete deletion of relevant, cited, and referenced text should be permitted. If Wikipedia hopes to ever be taken seriously, widescale vandalism of other people's work has to be dealt with in a quick and appropriate manner. 68.33.186.81 01:41, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Has anybody visited Michaellovesnyc's website (www.imbra.org)? I don't think he has any credibility when complaining about NPOV when he explicitly asks if people would prefer a mail order bride over "An [sic] Nasty Skanky Stupid American Feminist" That's michaellovesnyc's words, not mine....is there any doubt about who is vandalizing what? Michael, the need to exercise complete control and dominion over others that you are demonstrating here on wikipedia is precisely the reason that IMBRA was passed. You are your cause's own worst enemy and the type of person that Congress was concerned about a foreign woman being completely dependent upon.

Please sign your posts by typing ~~~~ at the very end; this will add your username and the time and date, and it helps everyone keep track of who said what. Gavin--I see your point, this information does seem to cast an overly negative light on mail-order bride marriage. I think the murder details, especially, are unnecessarily sordid for an article that's not specifically about crime. However, I certainly agree that the background helps contextualize IMBRA (even if it's an unfair law). I think the section under IMBRA should be pruned down to mention the background but remove the details about the crimes. Since the user who added them has obviously done the research, perhaps they'd like to create separate pages about those individuals (see Help:Starting a new page).

I also think it may be helpful to include a short section on abuse. There are a lot of resources out there (sociology papers, etc) that deal with that side of it, but more importantly, I think a lot of people visiting the article might be thinking of the mail-order bride as the stereotypical Asian woman victimised and dominated by an American man. I think the article should address that concern head-on in order to acknowledge the stereotype--talk about the exceptions that help to create the public perception--and also point out that that situation isn't universal. Perhaps it could come under some kind of section about why men do this (and there is plenty of literature addressing that). There could also be a section about the various reasons why women become mail-order brides.

To the anonymous user, re Michaellovesnyc--we try to take people's contributions in good faith, as far as possible. However, many of Michaellovesnyc's edits show, at best, a complete ignorance of Wikipedia policies and if you assume the worst, troll-like behavior (a, b, c, d and especially e--the anonymous account is also him). I really wonder if he should be banned, and if I didn't have a 2000-word essay on Lacan due tomorrow I'd be looking into it right now. --Grace 08:12, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Michael just removed the whole section; I think it's pertinent but long, and so am trying to find a compromise text that explains why the law was passed. Suggestions welcomed. --William Pietri 03:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

William, I can live with your edits with one exception -- the Nataliya Fox case is not in the Congressional Record, and should be separately described because it was a ground-breaking case (the first case ever against a mail order bride company) that received international media attention (just do a google search on her name). I'm adding that section back. I'm making these concessions to see if we can compromise with Michael (although if you visit the website he owns -- www.imbra.org (which he has also inserted into this article) -- I think you'll quickly see that he has an agenda that is not amenable to compromise. Dcbiglaw 04:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Then how would people feel about a section on concern about or controversy surrounding abuse of mail-order brides? I don't feel like the material fits in the legal issues sections, but given congressional interest, there must be a fair bit of material to build an section out of rather than bulking up the current one. If Michael is the owner of the domain you mention, I'd encourage him to consider WP:TIGERS and the advice in WP:AUTO: "You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved." --William Pietri 15:18, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

William, I hope you can now see that a compromise with Michaellovesnyc is beyond reach. Although I thought that your proposed resolution might work, apparently it does not. I agree, however, that the article should have a section on abuse issues for all the reasons that have already been discussed. It is the CENTRAL issue with regard to mail order bride regulation. As for Michael's edits that I deleted, all the "facts" he asserts are demonstrably false as found by two federal courts. That said, if he wants to include a simple sentence that asserts that Natasha Spivack still proclaims her innocence in the face of multiple court findings to the contrary, then I suppose he can but I don't know what that really adds to the article.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dcbiglaw (talk • contribs) 19:49, 8 June 2006 UTC.

I honestly haven't seen much attempt to find a compromise, and to me rolling back my edits feels like a continuation of an edit war that has more to do with "winning" than making a good encyclopedia article. However, I agree that Michael's behavior is far from what I expect from a Wikipedia editor, and his unilateralism is deeply frustrating. I encourage you both to assume good faith and talk with one another and work something out. --William Pietri 04:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Purely a POV comment...

I don't understand the IMBRA because of the following reasons:

1) It is aimed at a very narrow group of businesses, ones that promote foreign spouses for marriage. 2) If an abuser has something to hide, it is very easy to find a spouse via another method, IE traveling to a foreign country and meeting a spouse, using a service such as match.com etc. 3) Why only protect women who are introduced via an IMB, why not protect all foreign women (and men)? I really think this law should exist, but it should exist at the US consulate level before a visa (or green card if already married) is issued to a foreign fiancée or spouse. 4) If the consulate was collecting the information prior to a visa or green card being issued then the American Citizen wouldn’t be required to state his entire life history prior to saying “Hello”. Freedom of speech would still exist on all levels, while protecting everyone entering our country.

It seems to me that this law is a feminist stance and very anti-american-male. There are many better ways to protect ALL foreigners and not just the ones who meet spouses in ways that the feminist do not agree with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.61.23.238 (talk • contribs)

Please sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes, ~~~~. You're entitled to your point of view, of course, as long as you understand that you shouldn't try to insert it into a Wikipedia article. But if I can help clear things up for you, I think the IMBRA law is based on the perception that women who become brides through mail-order bride services are more vulnerable to abuse than most women or foreigners. That perception may be right or wrong, and it has to do with a variety of factors, but I see no reason whatsoever to assume that feminists must be behind it. Nor is feminism automatically anti-male--that is a stereotype. --Grace 14:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

It's not an assumption. The primary backers of IMBRA have connections to feminist groups, causes and legislative activities. I agree, feminism is not automatically anti-male, but many of the most prominent feminists act and speak in ways which make it clear that they themselves are anti-male. Their automatic assumption is that all men, as a class, are rapists and all women, as a class, are victims. They are, of course, welcome to their opinions. However, I am entitled to my own, and my opinion is that the majority of women raised in American culture over the last 40 years have been trained that divorce is profitable and nothing to be condemned. For that reason alone, I much prefer to seek a wife from cultures which do not believe that divorce is a Good Thing. Critic-at-Arms 01:12, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're getting off topic here, but that's a misconception I like to clear up when I see it. The "all men are rapists" quote doesn't represent contemporary feminism, which is infinitely more complex than that, however much you disagree with it. The original quote is actually spoken by a character in a novel by Marilyn French. It represents only the character's views, and is often quoted out of context by those who wish to criticise feminism. That's all I want to say - let's not get any more off topic. --Grace 00:12, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 18:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc To Unsigned; thank you and you are 100 % correct; Femi-nazis are definitely behind IMBRA; do not be intimidated by this know-it-all director guy; do not let him "clear things up" for you. You are intelligent and can clear things up for yourself by continuing to read and question. You can contact me at michaellovesnyc@aol.com if you would like to talk in private. I know these cyber thugs do not like free expression of ideas; which is really waht this IMBRA is all about

Once again Michael, claiming that I'm trying to "intimidate" people is assuming bad faith and calling other Wikipedia editors "cyber thugs" violates the policy of WP:No personal attacks. Please don't behave like this. --Grace 21:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 01:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc Telling someone that you will do their thinking for them is more of a personal attack than I could ever conjure

• To the original unsigned poster, IMBRA protects both a fiance(male) and fiancee(female) if you look at the language. But this law was created by Maria Cantwell in my State. But my overall opinion is that this law will not do much good and is a feelgood, pat yourself on the back law for politicians. I do suspect women's groups to be behind this since domestic violence affects overwhelmingly women and politicians don't create laws unless interest groups are pushing them. When I see new Americans laws created, I want the laws to serve Americans taxpayer who payed for it first and second ALL people equally. IMBRA does neither. It does not stop the root of the problem which is wife beaters/criminals. IMBRA helps prevent abusers from marrying foreigners but it will not stop abusers from marrying entirely and they will in turn marry a domestic woman/man and take out their aggression on them. IMBRA protects one group of people only to have another take more punishment. We need to stop the root of the problem. Also, embassies now have information that foreign women can get a green card if they claim abuse at any time. This information helps serve the needs of insincere women wanting a free ticket to America. Why not just give women information on who to call for help? There's no need to give incentive for a green card if abuse is reported. At least not mention that incentive. It's motivation for insincere women to claim abuse even when not true. I have nothing against people who want to attain a better life, we all want a better life, but there are goldiggers in foreign countries as well as at home and goldiggers will use any means, even though it hurts another, to get what they want. There are many men with false domestic violence charges against them and there now will be more since IMBRA makes it clear that a woman only need to CLAIM violence and she can remain in country. No evidence is needed. This is one area of law where a man is not innocent until proven guilty. Contrary to the stereotype out there and horror stories the media puts out, many of the men who bring home foreign brides are decent people. After all, Wikipedia states an estimated 80% of international marriages lasted over the years and has a lower divorce rate than domestic marriages.

B 71.227.178.128 03:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate Sections of Text

Someone has completed duplicated the sections on legal issues.

I tried to remove them and they were restored 2 minutes later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.61.23.238 (talk • contribs)

Mail Order bride is insulting.

I look at the use of "mail order bride" in the same way people use the word "nigger". Everybody knows what it means but it's insulting and wrong. First of all, I guess the people who coined "mail-order bride" had something against foreign women or was jealous. Anyone who asks a foreign woman if she was a mail order bride is doing that to purposely insult and humiliate the woman they're talking to. There's no such thing to where a man can order a woman and have her delivered by an agency. I have communicated with some women through foreign marriage agencies and foreign dating agencies. As with local dating sites, you purchase the right to communicate with the ladies by letter, e-mail and if they allow, by phone. A man must go over and visit the lady to date sooner or later or it remains a pen pal situation, and if he wishes to sponser her on a fiancee visa, he must prove they both had some serious face to face dating time to the American goevernment. It's easier to get hook up with a woman at home in the local internet dating agencies but we don't call domestic women who list themselves on the internet "mail order brides".

The ironic thing here is that Wikipedia is establishing what "mail order bride" is and if you were to ask the people that you're refering the term too, those women and their husbands would deny they're a mail order bride. It's common sense folks! You don't say "mail order bride" to a foreign woman who married a domestic man and you don't say "nigger" to an African American, unless you want a violent reaction. These are modern times Wikipedia and it's time to live it or remain in the dark ages.

B — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.178.128 (talk • contribs)

Michaellovesnyc 20:03, 3 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc But wikipedia also has an entry for Nigger and Cracker so ? I always say "Beautiful Mail Order Bride" to counter the term as offensive. You are right. Only jealous ugly feminazi BBW's object to Beautiful Mail Order Brides. That is why they vandalize this page with lies. Keep coming back and help me join the fight against sexism and anti female-ism

If you search mail-order bride on Google, you'll come up with many links to actual marriage agencies, who use the term themselves because everyone knows what it means. It's unfortunate that it also has derogatory connotations, but I still think it's the best name for the article. The article's not about every foreign woman who marries a Western man, only about those who seek to do so through an agency. So we would have to change each instance of "mail-order bride" to "woman who seeks a husband through a marriage agency"...which I think is too cumbersome. Do you have any suggestions for a more neutral term that is still clear?

Michael, please stop attacking other users. Your behavior is violating the policy WP:No personal attacks. Nobody is vandalizing this article--that has been discussed on your talk page already. --Grace 23:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

• Michael, Yes, if you search "mail order bride"(MOB) on google, you will come up with marriage agencies. Also if you search "submissive nude wife", you might come up with marriage agencies too. Money drives business and the methods used by agencies differ to direct traffic to their site but you don't call these women "submissive nude wife" just because agencies use it to get traffic to their site. You may think MOB the best name for the the article but a "mail order bride" simply doesn't exist! Since a domestic woman who's married to her husband could be called a bride, a foreign woman could be call a "foreign bride". It's as simple as that. There is not much difference from a domestic or foreign woman who lists herself on a dating site advertising herself for a man for marriage or one who lists herself in a marriage agency. The difference with Wikipedia's listing of "MOB" and "nigger" is that if one doesn't know what it means, after reading they will have a strong urge never to call an African American a "nigger" but may use the term "MOB" with no regret. I know it's hard to come up with a term that will be widely accepted because the media frequently uses the term "MOB" but maybe Wikipedia can direct people who search for "MOB" and direct them to a new universal term "foreign bride" or another that's suitable and makes sense.

Grace, thanks, but I don't feel Michael was attacking me. I can hold my own anyway. Contrary to media and public stereotype that only old, fat, over the hill losers/wife beaters search for ladies overseas, I'm a business owner, in good shape, decent looking, in my mid 30's and have a lot going for me. B — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.227.178.128 (talk • contribs)

B, I actually wrote the last two paragraphs above your comments - I wrote "If you search..." as well as "Michael, please stop...". To avoid this kind of confusion, according to Wikipedia policy, everyone is supposed to sign their comments on talk pages by typing four tildes, ~~~~, at the end of their comment. This will add your IP address (which is 71.227.178.128) and the time and date to the end of your comment. If you don't want everyone to see your IP address, you can sign up for an account--it takes about 30 seconds and you don't have to provide any personal information at all. By personal attacks, I was referring to Michael's calling users who oppose his edits "jealous ugly feminazi BBW's" who "vandalize this page with lies".

As for the use of the term, the article can't refer to these women as "foreign brides" because Wikipedia is supposed to present a worldwide view. A woman from Thailand is, of course, not "foreign" to someone else from Thailand. Also, not all intercultural marriages could be described as mail-order bride marriages - there is a distinct phenomenon which deserves its own article. An American man who married a foreign woman but did not meet her through a marriage agency could not be described as having a mail-order bride. The beginning of the article at least acknowledges that the term may be offensive, and although I agree, I still think it's our best option for the title. Perhaps we could think about removing references to "mail-order brides" from the main body of the article, replacing them with more neutral terms? --Grace 07:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Any idea that the term "mail order bride" is derrogatory or offensive is almost certainly a new development. If you scroll up, you will see the language the Congress of the United States used in passing the "Mail Order Bride Act." That's the official name of the United States Statute. You will also see that Congress was discussing the "mail order bride business." I seriously doubt that you will find language in the United States Code addressing "niggers" or "crackers" or any other epithet. So although I can appreciate that someone might be offended by the word "chair," that does not mean that most people are likewise offended. The bottom line is, the term means something, and everyone knows what you mean when you say it. Dcbiglaw 12:26, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

• Grace, I'm just supplying food for thought. The drivers of Wikipedia can decide what to do to get people educated. All I know is the term "mail order" at face value doesn't exist and if a person was able to order another human being by mail, then we should be talking about slavery. If you want to replace MOB with neutral terms then I'm all for it. I'm not one to be politically correct, but as I said "MOB" does not exist and gives people the wrong impression of what a foreign bride actually is.

DCbiglaw, I agree the term means something but I disagree that everyone knows what it means when said. Two years ago I believed women could be ordered through a catalogue and mail "MOB". I would and have ridiculed men who would find a woman this way. After my experience with international dating sites, I found "mail order bride" not to be true. No agency will tell the women who sign up that they are to be a MOB. Even though the U.S. government uses the term "MOB" occasionally, you will be hard pressed to find any politician telling a foreign bride to her face she's a MOB. It's OK for the majority of people who's not affected by the term MOB to use it, but I can assure you, no foreign woman you appropriate this term to wants to be called a MOB. B 71.227.178.128 02:48, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

B, be careful not to begin a line with a space; on Wikipedia that results in removing formatting for that line so that your comment goes beyond the edge of the page, making it hard to read. Other than that--the name issue is important but it's currently a secondary concern, as several editors are involved in an edit war with User:Michaellovesnyc, who is disrupting the article with reverts so that any rational discussion and progress is becoming difficult. I'd prefer to take up this issue after the edit warring has been resolved. --Grace 03:01, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

71.227.178.128, your experience is unfortunate but should not be an influence on the write-up of this article. It's best to take a neutral perspective and look at the facts. If such a term as "mail order bride" has become commonplace, we would search for sources (Google in particular). Especially when the term has been eroded over time (despite it being a seemingly short one), there would be some lost in the exact meaning, but it gets its point across. I also agree that not all foreign woman that marries into the sponser's country are "mail order brides" but there is a significant number to warrant the term itself. A generalisation although many would agree that these brides are a small subset of foreign-born wives. -- ^Evanx(tag?) 22:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Protected

Per a request at WP:RfPP, I've protected this page to interupt the ongoing edit war. Please use the talk page to discuss changes to the article, and once you have all reached an agreement and no longer believe protection to be necessary, leave me a note on my talk page or request unprotection. Thanks. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:45, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Much appreciated - I'm intending to submit an RfC against the main disruptive user, as we've been trying to resolve this issue for months. --Grace 07:00, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Finally a sysop is giving us some relief on this article. Sorry about not responding to your message grace. I'm sailing and just arrived in cell phone range. (I can see Hawaii off in the distance. :) I'll be back to catch up a little later. Cheers. Gavin 01:27, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Say, as the one who requested the protection, I should explain that I thought some cooling-down time would help quench the edit war. I am sure that it was protected at m:The Wrong Version, but hopefully people will use that as an incentive to come to a consensus on how to proceed. If I can be helpful in finding the consensus or mediating disputes, don't hesitate to ask. --William Pietri 03:07, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

As Grace has indicated, the war is being instigated by one disruptive person. I am happy to discuss the issue further, however, and am equally happy to have the dispute mediated. But I don't hold out much hope that mediation will result in a solution. Dcbiglaw 06:28, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 15:09, 12 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc - Why is it that anti Mail Order Bride propaganda is allowed such as 3 incidents of abuse (out of 50,000+ murders during the same period) while 1. Demographics from the CIA factbook is allowed to be deleted 2. Murder statistics of Russian women is allowed to be deleted 3. The response from a person accused of a crime is allowed to be deleted 4. The origin of the word is allowed to be deleted How can these entries with substantial cites be allowed to be deleted but the antecdotal stories of abuse are allowed to remain? The point of view is biased and unfair. I ask the moderators to review my article versus this version and tell me how my article is not fair. There was never any consensus to delete demographics; I do not think a 2 to 2 vote with one split is a consensus.

Michael, there aren't really "moderators" here to appeal to. Wikipedia is not an authority-based model; it's consensus-based. You will have to work with the other editors of this page to come to consensus. Note that as a person with a strong declared point of view on the topic, you will have a lot of trouble until you learn to set your POV aside. Given that the page is protected until everybody feels like the edit war is over, arguing over the content is currently pointless. Instead I'd advise you to take the time to talk with your fellow editors to find a working relationship that will prevent the edit war from starting again. --William Pietri 13:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Where was the consensus when they deleted my material? 2 (the same person prabably) people versus 1? How is this a consensus? There has been no rational explanation on why you would not include Demographics and the origin of the term itself. What are these other users trying to hide by deleting this? How can you say these facts are POV? I sourced the CIA Factbook for the demographics and people are disputing that? I sourced statistics based on thousands of murders in Russia and FBI murder statistics, and these people use 3 cases over the past decade to push their POV with "horror stories" of alleged abuse. So tell me who has a POV? Where is my POV when I am stating statistics and facts from reputable sources and not using antecdotal stories? Even when I agree to allow their POV, they still delete any alternate response. --Michaellovesnyc 14:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Michael, please place your signature after your comment, like everybody else, not at the start--it'll make things less confusing.

There are several problems with what you're saying. First, you can't consider any of your contributions to this article "your material", since when you edit Wikipedia you automatically agree to license all your contributions under the GFDL. When you're in the editing screen, it says that at the bottom of the edit box. This means that the Wikipedia community can change your edits however the community sees fit. No individual owns this article.

Secondly, we all know that the CIA factbook is a reputable source. But Wikipedia has a policy against original research. Because the CIA factbook doesn't itself mention a connection betweeen the statistics and mail-order brides, the Demographics paragraph was original research. Those statistics belong in an article about the demographics of Russia, not the article about mail-order brides, unless a reputable outside source has already stated that there's a connection. That's what it means by "no original research". This has been explained before on your talk page and elsewhere. I hope you will read the policy thoroughly this time.

Also, the "horror stories" you refer to may or may not belong in the article. I think they do belong, probably in a shortened form, because they give an appropriate background and context to the IMBRA law. However, you should discuss your objections in a polite way with other editors, on talk pages, not simply delete the information.

You accuse others of inserting a point of view into the article, but you appear to have rather strong opinions about mail-order brides yourself. I've seen your website, and parts of it are quite extreme and even offensive. Your edit of the Marriage article last month also speaks volumes about your point of view--I'm referring to this edit. It's so blatantly offensive and biased that I'd see it as vandalism if I didn't know you were normally a serious contributor.

By contrast, I honestly don't have a strong point of view about this topic. I knew next to nothing about mail-order brides before I started editing it. My only agenda is to make it a good, neutral article according to Wikipedia standards, which is the right sort of reason to edit an article. There's a good essay about that called Beware of the tigers. I think you should read it.

Finally, I can assure you I'm not "the same person" as anybody, which means at least two people have been reverting your edits. In fact, I count at least five different editors just from memory. I'll remind you again that Wikipedia has a policy against personal attacks, and accusing other editors of operating sock puppet accounts could be seen as a personal attack. --Grace 02:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 15:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc Excuse me if I don't know all the procedures here. I am sure you went through a learning curve.

1. I am not the one that started the deletes and reverts if you check your history. And I am not the one to start getting people banned. There is no research linking mail order brides and murders yet that is allowed? There is FAR more connection between mail order brides and the demographics than between them and murder. If there is any discussion about violence against Russian women, why was the Pravda article about 14,000 Russian wives a year killed deleted? Why was Spivacks response deleted? It presents only one side of the story. Either allow the Pravda article, Spivacks response and Demographics in or take out the 3 cases of murder. Or allow me to post details of 100 cases of happy and successful marriages. How about listing each and every murder that took place in non Mail Order Bride marriages; do you think that would be relevent to "marriage"?

2. Look at this one thing that keeps getting deleting: The ORIGIN of the word Mail Order Bride which I cited and was not original research? Why ? Tell me why something as basic as that has been repeatedly deleted?

I'm not sure if I understand what your complaint is. Try to be specific about which Wikipedia policies the article is violating, in your opinion. Please re-read what I wrote above. I explained why the demographics section is not appropriate. Did you read this explanation? You seem to be arguing that it's better than another part of the article, but even if it were, that would not suddenly make it all right. I already addressed your concerns about the descriptions of murders as well. I don't think that section is perfect in its current state. It can be changed, through civil discussion--not edit wars--when the article is unprotected. (The origin of the term, likewise, could be included, with an appropriate citation. If that was there before, no doubt it was reverted by mistake along with the more controversial parts of the article.)

As for the paragraph about domestic violence in Russia, the same policy applies: no original research. There is no connection stated by a reputable outside source between domestic violence and mail-order brides, so it can't be used in the article. What's more, it's a 400-word quote, which is inappropriate anyway. Spivack's response, also, is 760 words of straight quotation. Wikipedia doesn't use long quotations, but let me stress that this is not the only reason why these sections are not appropriate. Please, take some time to read Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. And stay cool. --Grace 23:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 14:37, 15 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc Why do you keep insisting that I started any edit war when you can see the history for yourself that I did not. I will find a source connecting the two; in fact I wil find three ( I am sure I can find 100); and maybe that will satisfy you.

The origin of the word was cited and it was intentionally and repeatedly deleted. Opponents of Mail Order Brides do not want to acknowledge that it has a long tradition and history becausze that would go against their argument.

Next up; I will look up sources for my "claim" which I believe is incredibly self-evident that teh imbalance of men and women in the US and in Russia has SOMETHING to do with the mail order bride business; I would like to bet money but no way of collecting unless we can do it on ebay; OK Deal?

So do we agree that: 1) The history goes back in 2) The extended cases of murder get reduced 3) Some part of Spivacks response is allowed 4) The three murders over 20 years are put into context of 1500 murders in the US and 14,000 murders of Russian women a year 5) IF I can provide 3 good references that there is a connection between the mail order bride business and the demographics, then some reference is put in there; it can only be one sentence but I think it is an interesting and important fact 6) The stuff about "compared to" arranged marriages gets linked to those entries; I see no reason for them to have an extended discussion here

As for the "extended" cases of murder: first, there are 3 listed out of the fifteen or so that Congress cited in the Congressional Record as being the catalyst for the enactment of the statute (take a look at all the cases in the Congressional Record). So I think a sampling of the three most visible cases is not inappropriate. Some detail is necessary because it was not just the murders/rapes/child molestations that required the passage of this law, but the many factors that lead to a power imbalance in the relationship that puts these women at a higher risk for these things to occur (e.g., the difference in ages, the lack of familiarity with language and laws of the US, and the fact that many of these men had histories of abusing other women, including other mail order brides). Without this context, the law seems draconian, which is exactly the viewpoint that Michael wishes to impart upon the reader. With the context, and an understanding of the entire socioeconomic dynamic involved, IMBRA seems to be a rational response to a serious problem.

Spivack: Does anybody think that a "response" by someone convicted by a jury is appropriate for an article? Imagine reading an encyclopedia article about 9/11 and finding a "response" from convicted Al Qaeda terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui giving "his side of the story" claiming how he was framed by a massive conspiracy against him. Is that really appropriate? I have no problem with a sentence that concisely states that Spivack denies any wrongdoing, but the facts -- and they are undeniably FACTS as concluded by a unanimous federal jury and four federal judges after a full and complete trial that took weeks -- that Spivack and her company were guilty of fraud, willful and wanton negligence, defamation, false and deceptive business practices, etc. Spivack actually countersued Nataliya Fox and argued every single thing that Michael wants to put in. Do you know what the jury said to all that? They said it was a load of B.S. -- they obviously didn't believe a word she said. In fact, they thought that what this marriage broker did was so horrendous, that she should be PUNISHED to the tune of $341,000.00. That's punitive damages in addition to the $100,000 they said she owed Fox to compensate her. The rest of the diatribe is all unsourced fabrications that were found to be untrue and -- to the extent they call Ms. Fox's moral character into question, defamatory. Dcbiglaw 15:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

24.45.47.102 15:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

• In addition to the CIA Factbook (I am sure my opponent hates anything to do with the CIA !) ; I now present 3 articles about the relationship betweem MOBS and the gender ratio; although I think the relationship is automatically self-evident; here are three articles that support this if needed and can be cited in the article. I found hundreds of others.

• Now; I have presented the CIA Factbook and 3 solid resources about my contention that the gender imbalance plays a role in MOB. I CHALLENGE and ask if my opponent find similiar FACTS showing that the abuse/murder rate of MOB is HIGHER or even EQUAL to the Domestic American abuse/murder rate or the Russian abuse/murder rate of spouses. Can my opponent show FACTS that the supposed age difference/cultural difference has in FACT increased violence and murder of these women MORE or even EQUAL to the American/Russian rate. She can not because EVERY fact and statistic shows that the abuse/murder rate of MOBS is FAR lower than the Russian rate and even FAR lower than the American rate. In addition, as the USCIS statistics show, MOB divoce rates are far lower than regular marriages. Instead of being a recipe for disaster, the age and cultural differences seem to be the recipe for success.

Supposedly 3 murders of MOBS in 20 years; they claim 10,000-50,000 MOBS a year ( I don't believe its that many so lets use the 10,000 number = 200,000 MOBS. If you use the higher numbers, they work in my favor.

US Murder Rate = 1500 / year (FBI stats) = .015% (100 Million Married American women) Russian Murder Rate of Spouses = 14,000 / Year (Pravda article) = .28 % (50 Mil Married Russian Women) MOB Rate = 3 over 20 years = .0015%

http://www.american.edu/ted/bride.htm

Another cause of the plethora of available Russian brides is that a major part of Russian culture for women is marriage. From the earliest times, marriage was seen as the most important point in a woman's life.13

copyright Valerie Chittenden 2000 My 11th grade class in 1996 Note how the girls outnumber the boys- This is the norm rather than the exception. Conventional wisdom considers any women over the age of twenty-two an old maid.14 Russian women also face statistical barriers. There are 3,361,255 more women than men aged 15-64. 15 Due to the deteriorating health system and the high rate of heart disease, the average life expectancy for men is 58 years while the life expectancy for women is 71.16 As a result, women have been under immense pressure to marry. Marriage and motherhood are major cornerstones in Russian culture. With this in mind, the government has traditionally supported this through special economic aid to couples, especially new parents. Special economic aid has resulted in a decrease in the average age of first marriages for women. Eighteen is now a normal age to marry. As teacher of the 11th grade, the author was shocked to see how many young women in my class were engaged at the age of 17 and planning their weddings after graduation. Unlike other developing nations, this does not result in a decrease in education. On the contrary, a large number of Russian women continue their education after marriage. However the result is paradoxical - an educated woman married at 18, that still maintains subordinate female gender roles.

http://www.natashaclub.com/about.html

First, there are simply fewer men in Russia, statistically. Secondly, a lot of men are abusing alcohol. To see the size and significance of this phenomenon, you have to visit Russia and see for yourself (especially small remote towns and villages). Third, due to the economy crisis, very few men have careers of any significance, and are making any money. small percentage of "eligible" men, who are financially stable, not abusers, and still single.

Half of Russia’s Women Are Single — Research

MOSNEWS.Com ^ | Created: 03.03.2005 12:14 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:14 MSK | MosNews Posted on 03/08/2005 12:16:08 AM PST by F15Eagle Recent statistical research has shown that about 50 percent of Russian women are single and a large number of them have never been married, the Interfax news agency reports, citing a speech by Anatoly Vishnevsky, the head of the Center of Human Demographics and Ecology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. “According to the latest poll, 175 women in every 1,000 have never been married, 180 are widows and 110 are divorcees and thus, all of them are single,” the researcher said at a news conference in Moscow on Thursday. In the 25-30 age group 219 women in every 1,000 have never been married, 106 are divorcees and 11 are widows, he said. Vishnevsky also said that the average age of a Russian bride has increased over the past few years. In 1990 the average age was 22, and now the figure is nearly 23. However, it is still significantly lower than the average bride age in Western Europe, the researcher said. He also said that according to the latest poll, there are 15 percent more women in Russia than men. For every thousand men we have 1147 women, and because of lower levels of males being born as well as high mortality rates among men we should not expect the gender ratio to level out, the researcher said. Sociologists have voiced concern over the situation because by mid-century the number of potential mothers in Russia may halve and by the beginning of the next century it could be three times below today’s level. “If we have less mothers we will have less birth and Russia’s population, which has been declining since 1992, will continue to decline,” Vishnevsky concluded.

http://www.womenrussia.com/mail_order_brides/

Russian women that decide to look for a husband abroad, don't choose between Russian men and foreign men - they choose between staying single and having a family and a husband. In Russia, women outnumber men (there are 10 million more women than men, according to the latest census, or 88 males for 100 females - statistics according to The Economist, "World in Figures, 2004 Edition"), and in most situations it is a question of luck if a woman manages to find herself a man or not. Russians marry early, and at the age of 25 most people are already married. If a man is not married, it can only mean he is not willing to commit - even bad men can find themselves a wife! Women must act fast if they want to get married and to ensure that they have a husband, one can only hope he will be a good man. There were even talks about changing the family legislation so that it would allow men to have multiply wives so that there would be competition among men too. (This is not a joke; this question was discussed in Russian parliament.)

dcbiglaw comment starts here (since Michael didn't sign the above). First of all, I do not believe that marketing and advertising materials created by mail order bride companies qualify as a reputable outside source, but that's what michael is citing (take a look at the original material to get the whole story -- I'll resist the urge to comment further).

Second: The very same federal government (USCIS) study the Michael is so fond of citing (to demonstrate the success rate of these marriages) has this to say about abuse:

"While no national figures exist on abuse of alien wives, there is every reason to believe that the incidence is higher in this population than for the nation as a whole. Authorities agree that abuse in these marriages can be expected based on the men's desire for a submissive wife and the women's desire for a better life. At some point, after the alien bride has had time to adjust to the new environment, to make new friends, and to become comfortable with the language, her new independence and his domination are bound to conflict. The problem, according to Mila Glodava (Glodava and Onizuka, 1994) and Uma Narayan (Narayan, 1995), is largely due to the men's unrealistic expectations. While many state a desire for a submissive wife, they find that such dependence becomes a burden. To provide some relief, the husband seeks ways (friends, activities) that will get the wife "out of the house" on occasion. The resulting independence then angers the husband who manifests the anger on the wife, who may have only been guilty of trying to please her husband."[2]

Dcbiglaw 15:58, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 19:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc Talk about only seeing what you want to see; I notice you highlighted everything except te first sentance: "While no national figures exist on abuse of alien wives..." The rest is speculation and extreme point of view. Only one article of 3 I put in is from an agency; the rest are independent. Why is an agency more or less credible than a political hacks opinion?

I can quote hundreds of men from the agency web sites that contradict that they want submissive wifes. And if they did, so what? Don't some American women want submissive husbands?

The USCIS statement is a joke and proves MY point. They ADMIT there are no national figures; but what the hell, lets make up some facts and call it a study anyway ! Thats what this is all about; lies versus facts. I have presented facts: Crimninal Statustics, FBI, CIA, PRAVDA; you present speculation. So I ask who has the POV here? Where are YOUR facts? I have presented mine and provided more than ample citation. Do you have any FACTS from FBI, USCIS, CIA? Anywhere ??? --Michaellovesnyc

A few points, Michael. First of all, Michael, the USCIS study (which you believe is the Bible when it suits you) was conducted not by "a political hack" but by Robert Scholes, Ph.D., Research Professor of Modern Culture and Media, Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative literature, and Modern Culture, and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Brown University. Not exactly a "hack" if you ask me.

Next, what I see you citing to are wommenrussia.com (a mail order bride company) and natashaclub.com (another mail order bride company). You do also cite to a course outline at American University. Frankly, I don't have a problem with including the American University information in the article.

Finally, to address your request for "Facts" I offer the following study excerpt from "Battered Immigrants and U.S. Citizen Spouses" By Giselle Aguilar Hass, Psy.D., Nawal Ammar, Ph.D., Leslye Orloff, J.D. Obviously we couldn't include all this information in the article, but I think it adequately addresses your baseless accusations regarding "lying:"

There is a growing body of research data demonstrating that immigrant women are a particularly vulnerable group of victims of domestic violence. They tend to have fewer resources, stay longer in the relationship, and sustain more severe physical and emotional consequences as a result of the abuse and the duration of the abuse than other battered women in the United States (Abraham, 2000; Anderson, 1993; Ammar, Orloff, Dutton & Hass, 2005; Ammar & Orloff, 2006; Bui, 2003; Hass, Dutton, & Orloff, 2000; Menjivar & Salcido, 2002; Raj & Silverman, 2002; Raj & Silverman, 2003; Rodriguez, 2004; Valdez, 2005; Warrier, 2002). In particular, research studies have found that abusers of immigrant domestic violence victims actively use their power to control their wife’s and children’s immigration status and threats of deportation as tools that play upon victim’s fears so as to keep their abused spouses and children from seeking help or from calling the police to report the abuse (American Bar Association,1994; Ammar, Orloff, Dutton & Hass, 2005; Natarajan, 2003; Orloff, Dutton, Hass, & Ammar, 2003; Raj & Silverman, 2003; Ramos & Runner, 1999; Raj, Silverman, McCleary-Sills & Liu, 2005).

Although the lifetime prevalence of domestic violence in the U.S. in the general population is estimated at 22.1% (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), the prevalence of domestic violence for immigrant women has been reported as being much higher. In a study of immigrant Latinas in Atlanta; Perilla, Bakerman, and Norris (1994) found that half of them have sought out assistance for abuse. The Immigrant Women’s Task Force of the Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Service (CIRRS, 1990) in their study of immigrant Latina and Filipina women in the San Francisco Bay Area found that 34% of Latinas and 20 % of Filipinas admitted experiencing domestic violence. More than half (52%) of the battered Latina said they were still living with the abusive partner. Taken together, studies of intimate partner violence prevalence in Latina, South Asian, and Korean immigrant women report numbers that range from 30% to 50% (Dutton, Orloff & Hass, 2000; Raj & Silverman, 2002ab; Rodriguez & Duran, 1995; Song, 1996). More specifically, in the AYUDA survey, relied upon by Congress in passing VAWA, with a general population sample of 280 immigrant Latinas, Hass, Dutton, and Orloff (2000) found a lifetime prevalence of domestic violence at 49.8% and the prevalence of psychological abuse (non-overlapping) at 11.8%. However among immigrant Latinas who reported being currently married or having been previously married, the physical and sexual abuse rate rose to 59.5%.

Battered immigrant women are particularly vulnerable and become trapped in abusive relationships due to their limited English language skills, a lack of knowledge they have about U.S. legal protections and services to help domestic violence victims, financial dependency upon male intimate partners and family members, isolation and lack of social support systems in the United States (Dutton & Hass, 2001, Sullivan & Orloff, 2004). They often experience discrimination and decreased social opportunities due to their minority status, acculturation difficulties, and the social disruption resulting from their experience as immigrants and their lack of legal immigration status. Rodriguez, Nemoto and Mkandawire (2003) found that the rights of immigrant victims are often overlooked by providers who see them as “others”, i.e. not deserving the full protection of the community because of their status as outsiders. Research on domestic violence conducted among immigrants indicates that immigrant women are very often victims of domestic violence due to vulnerability related to their immigration status (Abraham, 2000; Ahmad, Riaz, Barata & Stewart, 2004; Ammar, 2000; Ammar, Orloff, Dutton & Hass, 2005; Ammar & Orloff, 2006; Dutton, Orloff & Hass, 2000; Hass, Dutton, & Orloff, 2000; Orloff & Kaguyutan, 2002; Orloff, Dutton, Hass & Ammar, 2003; Raj & Silverman, 2002; Rodriguez, 2004; Srinivasan & Ivey, 1999).

The survey conducted by AYUDA demonstrated that 31% of the battered women reported an increase in the incidence of abusive incidents after their immigration to the United States. Another 9% reported that abuse began with immigration. One fifth of the surveyed immigrant women reported that their spouses use threats of deportation and of not filing or withdrawing immigration papers as a power and control tactic in the abusive relationship. One fourth of the participants stated that immigration status prevented them from leaving the abusive relationship (Dutton, Orloff, & Hass, 2000).

Dcbiglaw 20:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I hope you can see now that sources from mail-order bride agencies themselves aren't to be considered impartial and unbiased on this topic. They may be of some limited use, but it's better to go to academic articles like those Dcbiglaw has cited. Please stop accusing other editors of lying. Lying implies malice. Nobody is lying here. This is not about "lies versus facts"; this is about your point of view against others. Please think about what neutrality means. You know you have extremely controversial opinions about marriage and women. With these opinions, do you think you are able to keep a cool head on this issue? If not, perhaps you should step back from editing.

Look at the discussion on the Talk:Maria Cantwell page, where Michael has chosen to continue pushing his point of view. The other editors have analysed his paragraph calmly and are coming to a consensus. I would like to see such calm, civil discussion about the content of this article. Instead, this is turning into a shouting match. --Grace 23:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 02:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

Again; your studies cite "immigrant women" NOT mail order brides !!! How can you not understand the difference ????

You say that I am accusing you of lying and assume good faith; Here is your chance to show me - let me simply ask; are you consciencly lying here or was it a mistake? Do you agree that not all immigrant women are mail order brides or am I just wasting my time trying to expalin the obvious?

Do you even understand that NOT all immigrant women are mail order brides? Help me to explain how can I make this any clearer if it is not?

You complain that I did not specifically link the role that demographics plays in connection to mail order brides, yet you imagine a link between immigrant women and mail order brides.

Mail Order Brides make up about 1 % - ONE PERCENT - of all immigrant women. 1 %.

Where is the connection?

These studies are from a few cities, Atlanta, San Francisco; two of the most violent cities in the US; why wouldnt there be a national study and why is there no link to these studies? And these studies appear to be before the Mail Order Bride business even started or became as big as they are!!!

This comment was by a professor of "Research Professor of Modern Culture and Media, Professor Emeritus of English, Comparative literature, and Modern Culture" HUH? I would think that a criminologist would be an appropriate source. This guy again useses antecdotal evidence, old studies of ALL IMMIGRANT women and not anything about Mail Order Brides !

And of course you still ignore the question of why would you leave demographics out and include information on ALL IMMIGRANT WOMEN (OF WHICH 1 % ARE MAIL ORDER BRIDES AND 0 % WERE PART OF THE STUDIES YOU CITED)

Furthermore I have to assume you know that the violence in the Latino community is extremely greater than the population as a whole and has no bearing on Immigrant women in general; yet you compare the regular abuse rate versus ALL IMMIGRANT WOMEN (Not even Mail Order Brides ! and certainly not Latino Mail Order Brides)

If you knew anything about statistics, you know that you are comparing apples to oranges.

So you take "ALL IMMIGRANT WOMEN"; the vast majority being illegal entries in the MOST violent cities in America and the MOST violent group within these cities and compare these to the population as a whole and draw the conclusion that Mail Order Brides, the VAST majority who come from Europe and the Phillipines and NOT LATINOS, are represented by this sub-group that is extremely prone to violence and draw a connection.

In fact; your study PROVES that Mail Order Brides are LESS ABUSED than the population as a whole; Filipinas - who are much more likely to have been mail order brides at that time than Latinos, who were much more likely to have entered illegally had a 10 % LOWER rate of abuse than the population as a whole.

So tell me if you are acting in good faith in presenting this argument and tell me you inadvertantly overlooked some things; if you cling to your argument despite what I pointed out then you clearly are not

And lets not pretend that the Tariah Justice Center is not impartial and Marriage Brokers aren't; there IS bias on both sides; I admit that, but can you? That is why I included non Broker studies as well —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaellovesnyc (talk • contribs) 02:29, 18 June 2006 UTC.

On Tone and Consensus

Michael, you didn't address Grace's concern about tone at all, and I feel that the tone is the biggest problem here. This is not the place to debate the topic; here we are just trying to make a good encyclopedia article. Unless you can put aside your admitted strong point of view on this topic, you should probably find another article to edit, as you will never be happy with this one. --William Pietri 16:27, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 23:41, 18 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc; this is not the place to debate the topic??? Isnt that why we have this page??? What tone? There is no tone in writing; there is only tone in specaking. I am the only one that sticks to facts and not distoring statistics and leaping to unfounded conclusions. I see that each and every time I brilliantly show how biased you are, you switch the topic ! You use statistics from 1) Illegal immigrants 2) In the Latino Community 3) In major cities and extend those studies, without any basis and apply it to 1) Legal mail order brides 2) In the Filipina and European communites 3) Across all urban and rural aress to come up with the conclusion that the second subset must have the same crime statistics as the first subset. That is like saying White women across America have a high rate of abuse because you have a study of black women in harlem that get abused ! Even the statistics show that the groups that are more likely to be mail order brides in the late 90's IN FACT have a lower abuse rate. So instead of addressing FACTS you throw in "tone". That is a great way to avoid addressing the issue. I don't have any bad "tone" at all except the relentless pursuit of truth and honesty. That is the "tone" you don't like. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaellovesnyc (talk • contribs) 23:41, 18 June 2006.

No, the the rest of the internet is available for debating topics. Here we only try to figure out how to make a good article about what's already out there. To do otherwise is original research, which is forbidden here. As to tone you're welcome to call it what you like, but word choice and arrangement in writing conveys information similar to tone in speaking. In the dictionary, that is called tone whether written or spoken. I believe your tone is unnecessarily combative and contentious, and am asking you to give that up and adopt a more collegial approach, which is what consensus requires. I also am disappointed that you are not acknowledging that you have a strong point of view on this topic, as evidenced by your efforts off Wikipedia. If you can't be honest about the biases you're starting with, you'll never be able to write in the neutral point of view style that Wikipedia requires. --William Pietri 00:03, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 00:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc You are imagining that I have a "tone"; IN FACT (I know you can't stand facts) YOU were the one that initiated the attempt to have me banned ! How is that for combative and contentiois ! I am the friendliest person on the internet !!! I never hide my biases like you are doing. I ADMIT I have biases ! Do you admit this?

Do you think lying about statistics, exaggerating the abuse rate of mail order brides and including long essays here isn't biased ? I have given you the opportunity to correct your statements with regard to the statistics but you refuse. When we had reached a consensus one time, I agreed and all was fine until my stuff was deleted again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaellovesnyc (talk • contribs) 00:55, 19 June 2006 UTC.

Michael, all writing will be read with a tone; whether or not you intend one, people will read one, so you might as well take responsibility for it. I have not initiated any attempt to have you banned. I did ask for the page to be frozen because of the edit war. If your disruptive behavior continues, I may eventually support a request for you to stop editing certain pages, but I'm not convinced that's necessary yet. That's why I'm taking the time to help you and others come to a good working relationship here. I don't think we can usefully address issues of content until we solve the problems of tone and behavior. --William Pietri 02:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

24.45.47.102 03:00, 19 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc THERE YOU AGAIN ! Telling facts is not disruptive !! I will not give in to your threats; you should be reported for your nasty tone ! This is not China ! This is AMERICA ! If you don't love America, then get out  ! America is about FREEDOM AND LOVE BABY ! And thats why Mail Order Brides love us; they love that we only tell the truth and stick to facts and not have nasty tone like you do ! They love Freedom like I do ! God Bless America !!! USA USA USA 24.45.47.102 03:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

That seems like a funny way to try to convince us that you're ready to work with us to make a better article, Michael. I'm not saying that facts are disruptive; I'm saying that your behavior is disruptive. And that behavior means we can't work with you to improve the article. If you want to influence this article, you'll have to figure out how to work with the rest of the editors. Off-topic screeds about your political views aren't part of that. Instead, why don't you say how you'd like to see us all working together? --William Pietri 04:06, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 13:40, 19 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc I tried working with you but you just refuse to acknowledge any points I make;

1. The 3 crimes against mail order brides need to be taken out or put into context with the FBI and Pravda crime statistics; you talk ad naseum about these case and ignore the facts that they are inconsequential or prove that the murder rate of MOBS is much lower than the murder rates as a whole

2. The Ohio case where there was no TRO is irrelevent and needs to be taken out; denial of a TRO is a non-story and you make it out to be more than what it is

3. For some bizarre reason which you have yet to explain is why you deleted the origin of the term; I have no idea why this is so difficult to put in other than you want to make believe that mail order brides is some recent innovation by us abusers; who in your mind have nothing better to do than spend thousands of dollars to beat up foreign women

4. The demographics again; if Russia and Ukraine have millions more women you don't think that is relevent to mention? I don't get that; but three idiots who got mmurdered get thousands of words

5. Taking out the fact that Bush signed it; its not like he should be proud of it, but the idiot did sign it. And it is PART of VAWA, it is not VAWA; this has been corrected but is occasionally reverted. It seems that you do not want to give him "credit"

6. The fact that this has delayed 10,000 visas from being processed is relevent

7. The comparisons with other marriage arrangements; I don't get; why not compare it to oranges; or just reference it and make a link to them

8. At least mention that men are victims of fraud here since you make such a big issue of the abuse nonsense and admit that most of these abuse cases are fraudulent —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaellovesnyc (talk • contribs) 13:40, 19 June 2006 UTC.

Yes, Michael. I'm saying that I'm uninterested in discussing the content until we have some agreement from everybody on how to behave. Administrators likely won't unlock the page until editors here believe the edit war won't start right up again. And your behavior above and your unwillingness to examine your role in this problem are strong signs that the edit war is not over. Were I you, I'd start with WP:CON, WP:NPA, and WP:AGF. --William Pietri 14:26, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

To the gentleman ("Michael"?) who seems to have been the cause to this page having to be locked, you say you're new to Wikipedia. That appears evident from the discussion on this talk page and your previous edits. I would urge you to take time to become thoroughly acquainted with the site standards and ethos, as they create a binding and instructing compact for those who choose to take part in the community. As well, though I understand your frustration in engaging others in disagreements around a topic with which you claim personal experience--or at least I took that to be the case from your comments regarding your previous marriage--and about which you have strong, personal views, I beg you to understand the aim of an encyclopedia as the creation of a compendium of knowledge, not a search for "the truth." Indeed, leafing through any older encyclopedia easily demonstrates the frustrations of a dependence on knowledge, as the book always lurks a step or two behind developing systems of understanding and available data. Certainly, communally edited projects can often hamper this evolution: consensus often produces and promulgates unfair characterizations and innacuracies. Yet projects such as Wikipedia, embacing their roots in an "open source" way of looking at knowledge, culture and development, ultimately found their hopes on a belief in the critical masses of informed, curious and dedicated scholars (of all stripes) to produce better work together than they might separately. Questioning and investigating your own data and opinions remains a crucial part of what each of us brings to this effort. Finally, I can't believe you truly don't understand or believe in a "tone" to the written word. Indeed, the frequency and care with which you capitalize entire words or insert superflous punctuation for the purpose of force through iteration belies your claim. Your dedication to this topic and your willingness to seek out data you feel backs your editing is commednable. Please, then, join with your fellow editors in adopting a reasonable (and one would hope, cordial)) tone in future interaction, if only because wiki projects depend on the very dedication to production that you so ably demonstrate. --Patchyreynolds 16:47, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I notice that no one seems to be interested in facts. Whenever I nail the facts, they switch the subject to tone or some other things. But they can't dispute the facts themselves. So the question is now POV and tone. I have admitted that I have a POV. These people pretend that they have no POV or their own "tone". I have admitted that I have a POV, and by me admitting my POV and them denying that they do not, I have proven that I am more objective. As far as my actions; I have never censored anyone or tried to censor anyone as these people have done. I have always tried to be fair and balanced and if there are two sides, I have always allowed both sides to be heard. They write thousands of words of propaganda and delete 10 words I write and dispute every fact with inaccurate information. Michaellovesnyc 19:42, 19 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

I don't know the data behind the subject matter well enough to refute any of the positions articulated during the edit wars. That's part of the problem with the way you're conducting yourself. The division of subject matters in a wiki-based encyclopedia presumes that folks with varied schools of expertise can meaningfully contribute toward the overall project as writers/editors and consume other sections as readers. The way you interact with people in the sphere of the interest/expertise around mail-order spouses, however, has forced the temporary cessation of scholarly input from which I, an interested and admittedly ignorant party, could otherwise have benefited. This section of the talk page is not even designed to address individual disputes around data, but to discuss the tone of the evolving piece (and talk), as well as the manner in which interested parties are trying to reach consensus. Much of this suffers from your treatment of parties who disagree with you, times that seem to occasion vitriol rather than dialogue. (Has anyone convinced you that any of your views deserved to be modified during all this? What are the chances that everything anyone writes is correct?) Finally, much of what you contributed in the past--not just on this page, but elsewhere on wikipedia--is pure conjecture and opinion. (Marriage as legitimized rape of a man by a woman?) It's fine fodder for a personal or organizational website, but not even marginally appropriate in an encyclopedia. --Patchyreynolds 20:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

"Marriage as legitimized rape of a man by a woman?" was written to make a point. There are MANY cases where men have beem raped by their spouses and MANY cases where wives have been raped by their spouses. Do you see each and every case of spousal rape and murder on the marriage page? Is there a discussion of spousal crime statistics on the marriage page? Are there general negative sexist prejudices displayed on the marriage page? Are we allowed to say that Black men are more violent than white women so it is a big concern on the marriage page? The answer is no of course. So why then are indivdual crimes ; 3 out of thousands of successful marriages to MOBs allowed to be detailed ad naseum? Yes these incidents happen, but this is not the right place for it. By detailing each and every crime and taking it out of context distorts the reality of what is happening and serves only to cast a negative light on the subject. Of course they delete overall statistics and demographics because that is not "relevent". They have an agenda to stereotype the men and women that take part in the process. EVERYTHING I have submitted about MOB's was backed up with data and facts from USCIS, FBI, CIA, and legitimate marriage agencies. These people tell me that the "CIA Factbook" is not a good source because the CIA is an "evil agency". Come on. These people distorted the facts to paint a different picture and took things out of context. A good example is how they used a USCIS report of mostly latino, non mail order immigrants in large urban areas and drew the conclusion that it applied to white mail order brides in suburban and rural areas. Whenever I used a report or fact, I made sure to narrowly tailor it to mean exactlty what it meant for example the fact that there are more women than men in Russia. They claimed that I leapt to a conclusion in stating that when I did no such thing. There are more women than men in Russia; and I can not change that fact no more than they can. There are 14,000 wives killed a year in Russia, another irrefutable fact. I stated this to put it into contrast of the 3 murders of MOB's over the past decade. They take things out of context, twist statistics around and deny facts. And I'm the bad guy???? Michaellovesnyc 01:21, 20 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

Michael, I am happy, as I'm sure are the other editors, to discuss content once your behavior improves and we have all agreed on a way to work going forward where we believe the edit wars will not restart. Until we have a way to make progress, I believe any discussion of content is sterile argumentation, having no point. --William Pietri 01:49, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

To be frank, William, while I appreciate your sentiment, I do not see much point in discussing anything with Michael. There comes a point where the inane behavior and antics cross the line. And that point has been reached, for me at least. I can appreciate the view that the detail in the descriptions of three of the fifteen or so murders, rapes, and child molestations committed by men who obtained their mail order brides that Congress considered in passing IMBRA could be reduced. I don't mind working on doing that. But that's where it ends, for me. There are more studies out there in addition to the ones I've cited but I don't want to waste the space. If asked, I will gladly provide them. In fact, the correlation between mail order brides and violence (and the reasons behind it) is so well documented in the academic literature that I feel like I'm arguing with someone about whether the world is flat.

The fact is Michael has a political agenda that he hardly bothers to conceal. If you read all his posts on the various mail-order bride websites, you will learn that he was apparently jilted by his first mail order bride, that he believes that women are generally second-class citizens put here for his amusement, and that American men are a persecuted class. His posts often are not only blatantly sexist, but as demonstrated above, are sometimes also vaguely racist. Indeed, I do not believe that Michael has any interest in actually writing an encyclopedia article -- what he wants is transparent.

To the extent it is appropriate, I would submit that the time for negotiating with this individual regarding anything has come and gone. I appreciate the values that wikipedia holds dear, but some mistake them for weakness and try to take advantage. Have we had enough yet? -- Dcbiglaw 02:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 03:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC) michaelloves Gee; so who is the nasty one here with a nasty tone making personal attacks?? This sexist liar declares that they have no POV and criticizes me for admitting that I do. This person blieves that men are second-class citizens and are convicted abusers put here to be lynched without a trial and that women are a persecuted class in need of protection. This racist attacks and portrays the white American male as an abuser. They are bent in shoving their meandering lectures and political rants down the throats of people. They are incapable of debate or intelligent discussion. Like a two year old who doesn't get their way, they wet their pants, break their toys and cry like babies. I submit that the time for negotiating with this individual has come and gone. I had enough of the lying and dishonesty from this individual. I presented myself honestly with my flaws and admitted my own biases while this child declares themselves to be a member of a perfect femi-nazi super race. I have flaws but at least I am honorable and decent and I have principles which is more than this coward can say !

Michael, I understand you feel attacked here, but this behavior is entirely inappropriate, and is throwing gasoline on the fire. I ask you to stop and to apologize for the outburst. If you can't control and maturely express your feelings, I'd advise you to walk away from Wikipedia for a while. That's certainly what I do when something becomes too heated for my tastes. If you keep on like this, you're sure to end up being banned. --William Pietri 15:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Request to ban Michael

Editors, can we please ban Michael and stop wasting time on this. I have personally spent hours trying to reason with him on this page, my talk page and his talk page. We've done enough. Michael exhibits not even the slightest evidence of understandg regarding what the community is trying to accomplish here. Nor does he exhibit the slightest evidence of an attempt to try to understand. Please, let's ban him, put this to rest, and move on to productive work. Wikipedia is a beautiful thing. It's painful to see so many people (myself included) wasting time on this. Gavin 06:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Gavin, I see two possible outcomes here. One is that Michael gets banned; the other is that he eventually settles down and becomes productive. There's no reason we can't move along both paths at the same time. I agree that him getting banned is, as this point, more likely. However as you can see below, by phrasing your concerns like this it creates unnecessary conflict because it looks like a personal attack. If you think it's appropriate to proceed with the dispute resolution process, by all means do so, perhaps by working on this RfC. In the meantime, please treat Micheal with the assumption of good faith that we all deserve. Thanks, --William Pietri 15:01, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your effort William and I wish you good luck in resolving this dispute. My time--like yours and all the other editors here--is valuable. I'm not going to spend any more on this article until I can be productive. Please leave me note when Michael has come around or has been banned and I'll return to work. Until then, this article is off my watch list. Gavin 23:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Outcome number 3 - Gavin gets banned : ); I think we can all agree that would be the best solution. 24.45.47.102 16:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

I believe that is both unlikely and not the best solution, which is that the argument stops, people agree to work together, and we work on the article. I hope this is a joke, Michael, because if it isn't you need to readjust your expectations; in my opinion you are moving quickly down the road to some sort of ban. If it is a joke, it's an ill-advised one: the more you demonstrating your unwillingness to work with other editors, the less influence you are likely to have over the content of this article (or possibly any other here). As I said elsewhere, I'd encourage you to take a break from Wikipedia until you're ready to behave appropriately. --William Pietri 16:54, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Michaellovesnyc 13:48, 21 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc How have I not behaved qapproprioately in th epast month? Someone can say that I was jilted by a mail order bride and you just blow it off. What she said was far more hurtful and mean spirited than I ever came close to. You ignore the fact that I keep trying to discuss the article rather than engaging in personal attacks. Everytime I go back to discuss the artcle you bring up my "tone" or whatever from a month ago. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Michaellovesnyc (talk • contribs) 13:48, 21 June 2006 UTC.

As I explained, it was not meant as a personal attack. Nevertheless, in pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis. -- Dcbiglaw 14:28, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

After saying something that someone misinterpreted for a personal attack, it can be helpful to say something like "and I'm sorry you took it that way". Also, finding consensus isn't much like the law's process for finding fault, so I wouldn't take par delictum very far if I were you. --William Pietri 14:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Michael, I didn't "just blow it off"; below I said it was impolite. I however, don't agree that it was intentionally more harmful than what you have said. The rest was a relatively neutrally-phrased statement of what he/she believes about your beliefs and motivations. It may be wrong, but I don't see it as malicious. As Patchreynolds points out, those of us involved here have been forced by your behavior to consider your motivations and the origins of your beliefs in deciding whether you will ever become a productive editor here. As well, you are far from blameless, talking about a "perfect femi-nazi super race" and describing a fellow editor as a "coward" using "lying and dishonesty" who "wet[s] their pants" is surprisingly rude, doubly so when in the same breath you call yourself "honorable and decent".

As to the question of facts relating to the article, this is not the time to discuss them. You could have done that at any point during the edit war; you didn't. Edit wars aren't about content; they're about behavior. The page will stay locked until most people agree the edit war won't restart, and that is all about behavior. In my opinion, although others aren't blameless, this problem is mainly about your behavior. There's no need to take my word for that, though; we'll go through the RFC process and you can get some more outside opinions on the topic. My expectation is that at some point you'll have to go back and take a long look at your behavior in light of Wikipedia policies and guidelines like Wikipedia:Etiquette. Maybe that's after the RFC. Maybe that's after you get banned. Or maybe you could start now. I hope it's the latter. --William Pietri 14:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Request to ban Gavin and Dcbiglaw

These users ugly racist and sexist comments and sterotypes have no place in a public forum. I have tried to discuss this issue by staying focused on facts. Time and time again, these two users resorted to personal attacks rather than on the issue at hand. Instead of responding to my comments, they instead try to get me banned since their arguments are weak or non-excistant. They have included inappropriate, irrelevent and highly speculative material on a topic they know very little about. They wrote thousands of words off topic and deleted a single sentence that I wrote that was on point. I have tried in good faith to work a compromise. Even when we had agreed on a consensus, they still violated it and attacked me personally. One of them even wrote " you will learn that he was apparently jilted by his first mail order bride" which is not true and I was never married to a mail order bride. This is a reprehensible and disgusting display of rude behavior and a personal attack that is a flagrant violation of wikipedia policy. As canbe seen, I have several times attempted to focus on the isssues while they persisted in personal attacks. 24.45.47.102 13:31, 20 June 2006 (UTC) michaellovesnyc

Michael, I agree that the phrase "jilted" was unnecessary and inappropriate. (Though since you are frank in your support of foreign women coming to America for the express purpose of being spouses I'm a bit baffled why an implication of your having participated in such a union would be read by you as "reprehensible.") However, you brought the relation of your personal life to the subject matter into consideration vis a vis your editing when you began speaking about your past marriage and past trips to Russia (complete with details of sexual encounters) and referring to American women as "skanks," "femi-nazis," and "rapists". Most of us involved with this dispute have been forced to consider the origin of your personal viewpoints in regard to the topic of mail-order brides, if only to account for the vitriol that laces your work. As well, I don't find your suggestion elsewhere that one of wikipedia's most industrious editors "join the KKK" to reflect an attempt to "work in good faith." There's a place on the web for your particular brand of discourse, but I don't think it's on this site. --Patchyreynolds 14:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

"jilt tr.v. jilt·ed, jilt·ing, jilts: To deceive or drop (a lover) suddenly or callously." I didn't think the use of that term it was inappropriate given Michael's own telling of the events leading to his divorce (of his "commie" ex-wife {his words, not mine}) and that he proclaims his personal experience in this field the source of his alleged superior expertise and knowledge. My mentioning of it was not intended to be a personal attack, but rather speculation on what was motivating Michael's unreasonable and unacceptable behavior. However, I appreciate that others' views may differ from my own in mentioning it and therefore I apologize for my use of that phrase. --Dcbiglaw 15:00, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Even if it was technically correct, It was not polite. Especially when in the middle of dispute resolution, I think it's important for everyone to be scruplously polite; if nothing else, it makes things go much quicker. --William Pietri 15:10, 20 June 2006 (UTC)