Talk:Fathers' rights movement/Archive 5

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Abortions

I removed a statement to the effect that father's rights advocates favor forcing women to have abortions. That's, in technical terms, retarded. It's not even a fair characterization of the Men's rights movement but, while there are many valid issues around the way men have no reproductive rights none of them are related to father's rights. I only removed the one, particularly egregious line, but father's rights is a subset of men's rights. Reproductive rights aren't really part of father's rights except, tangentially, when it comes to child support and paying for children they didn't want, or having children they want adopted out without their consent (when women can legally adopt, abort or abandon children with no subsequent responsibility.) Forcing women to have abortions as a tenet of even fringe father's rights groups is just ridiculous. The rights of fathers really comes into play once children are born though (ie after most reproductive rights issues are moot.)--Cybermud (talk) 22:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I had a sneaking suspicion you might agree with this one. Quite incredible content to have here. Did you have a chance to look at the article's history to find out who has been adding such material? There are a lot of edits so it won't be easy but guidance ought to be issued. If you read the source given for the whole abortion argument thing not only does the single non notable person cited refuse to actually make the point suggested, the source itself also clearly states such a position it's not a widely held belief! An absolutely astonishing addition.--Shakehandsman (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I spoke to it at greater length above, but most of these sources find some radical FR activist and construct a straw man of the entire movement around him. So one guy says I should be able to force women to have an abortion if I don't want to have the kid and that gets built up as the ideology of all fathers who won't "stop whining," "be a man" and stop raping and beating women long enough to support their kids... Assuming the one man that actually said that wasn't completely quoted out of context.--Cybermud (talk) 01:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

If you read the source you'll see he refused to say what people are trying to attribute to him. Of course he may have held that view and may have implied it, but to source the beliefs of an entire movement to one random person who wouldn't even confirm his position is incredible.--Shakehandsman (talk) 02:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

You are not reading the source correctly. Sherry F. Colb, a Professor at Rutgers Law School makes a general statement that "Some fathers' rights advocates feel so strongly about this reproductive inequity that they maintain that if either a man or a woman wants to terminate a pregnancy, against the wishes of the other partner, he or she should be able to do so."[1] Newdow is simply used as an example of such an activist. It is clear that "retarded" (as Cybermud puts it) or not, a reliable source has stated that some FRAs do favour insisting on women having abortions. It is quite reasonable to argue that it would be undue weight to mention to Colb's remark given that no other sources link such abortions with the FR movement; and the sentence in the article should certainly have had "some" in it to clearly indicate that this is a minority position among FRAs. But stating that this being sourced to Newdow's opinion is simply incorrect.--Slp1 (talk) 02:59, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

In is ridiculous to shave so much weight of the article focusing on extremist minority opinions which not even one person will admit to. Even the one single source used states "It appears, however, that the belief in a man's right to compel a woman to have an abortion is not widely held". It goes on to say "Indeed, one of the very few areas in which pro-life and pro-choice activists would tend to agree, is this one: A man should not have the right to terminate the lives of his unborn offspring in utero." "Some" feminists want to kill men but such views aren't on the article about feminism. "Some" proportion of every group has criminal conviction etc and we don't add that do we? This article should be dealing with significant beliefs of the Fathers' Rights movement rather than ones no one has ever heard of. I strongly suggest you read up on Wikipedia:UNDUE#Undue_weight. If just want to write about a small number of criminal father's rights extremists with bizarre views then I suggest you create a different article pertaining to that topic.--Shakehandsman (talk) 03:34, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not just undue it's intellectually dishonest and maliciously pejorative and POV. Should I go to the rape article and put a blurb in there there that says "some women have rape fantasies" in the section on victim impact? It's incontrovertibly true and I can source that with reputable sources till the cows come home... or maybe I should go to mother and write mothers are 10 times more likely to commit infanticide. It's undue, it's just common sense inappropriate and, in any case, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, not off-hand comments in a news article. Is it really so difficult to believe that the FRM might just have, as its primary goal, being able to play an active and equal role in the care and education of their children? No, of course not, that's just a "rhetorical strategy to elicit an emotional response.." Right. They really want to keep kids so they can abuse them and manipulate the mothers. It's a classic example of the fallacy of generalizing from the exception. One father wants custody to harass the mother and joins the FRM therefore all members of the FRM are batterers seeking control of their ex. Reason and logic dictate that such a conclusion is necessarily false, but then, reason and logic are masculine tools of the patriarchy that are used to oppress women and are, therefore, suspect. "Some," btw, is the archetypal weasel word (as in "some fathers")--Cybermud (talk) 03:42, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough I did downplay the issue a bit there I suppose. Apologies for that.--Shakehandsman (talk) 03:47, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree. The removed language made it sound like men demanding the legal right to force women they impregnate to have abortions was an accepted idea within the FRM. There is absolutely no reason why we should allow this article to present such fringe ideas. As mentioned above, the same type of "stretches" would not be allowed in other articles, and there is no reason why we should allow them here. And let's keep in mind that reliable sources are not the ONLY attribute necessary to insert language into an article. If there is consensus amongst editors that an element of an article should be removed, then it must be removed, reliable sources notwithstanding. Ebikeguy (talk) 04:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ebikeguy, some excellent points and it's really good to have another editor's opinion here. Would be great to hear your views on some of the other major problems too. Thanks for you input.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:09, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Note as I've said here, that this section is now substantially different, particularly on that point. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Anti fathers' rights campaigner editing this article

Just been glancing at the history of this piece to try to see what's gong on and came across an editor named user:Trish Wilson. Assuming it's not the biggest ever coincidence in history, it seems would appear she is a highly vocal and longstanding anti-fathers' rights activist. I note others make a big issue of editing by Fathers' Rights Groups (which I haven't' looked into to verify or otherwise) yet strangely no one has mentioned the other side of the coin. I haven't checked exactly what quantity of her material is problematic and she at least adds well sourced material but there's appears to be an complete lack of balance and just an attempt to add as much criticism and POV as possible. Given the amount of material she's written attacking Fathers' Rights Groups she's clearly quite knowledgeable on the subject and some input is probably quite valuable, but it's pretty clear she's got way beyond adding balance and her editing is obviously going to suffer from POV problems and it looks to me like a clear case of Wikipedia:Advocacy. Anyway I hope people find this information a useful balance to other comments and this may explain some of the tone of the article. She hasn't contributed for a while, I've done a quick check and it should be noted that some of the problematic content was not in place when she left so there must be other problem editors too. A few quotes from Wilson:

• "members are not good fathers seeking support but rather angry men (and women who stand by them) seeking expanded male entitlement. Their private communications are diatribes against child support and in favor of controling women. Not even much lip service is paid to the father-child relationship."
• ""Shared Parenting" is a political euphemism for "men's rights." "
• Glenn Sacks wrote the following about her: "For a decade feminist blogger Trish Wilson has specialized in tracking and attacking the fatherhood movement"http://www.glennsacks.com/enewsletters/enews_5_3_06.htm

Also I would add the on the NPOV noticboard Slp1 cites User:Anonymum as evidence of editors having concerns that this article is somehow biased towards fathers rights groups! Just to set the record straight the user in question is in fact permanently banned form Wikipedia due to disruptive editing, so lets take this claim with "a pinch of salt".--Shakehandsman (talk) 03:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it didn't go unnoticed that Slp1 jumped over there to wax poetic about how "every so often" father's rights activists come over here trying to change the article. Guess "advocacy" on this issue is a one-way street for him/her.--Cybermud (talk) 04:07, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Hold on a second, you've got no evidence that Slp1 knew that Trish Wilson was prominent anti-fathers' rights activist, unless you know more about this then of that then the Anonymum issue is the only indiscretion.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Slp1 has been an editor of this article for a very long time. There have been a number of disputes about it, but when he/she went to discuss its edit history he characterized it as "father's rights activist come over from time to time." I don't doubt that such is very much true, my point is that he only views it as activism or advocacy when it tries to make the article more favorable to the FRM and simply views it as "editing" when promoting the opposite POV (hence you and I are "activists" and the people who disagree with us are "editors." I didn't mean to imply that he knew the history of Trish Wilson or anonymum.--Cybermud (talk) 04:38, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok it's good you clarified things, thanks. I do agree with all your other points entirely though. Slp1's userpage lists this article as one to which she has made "major contributions" too. There is still one other error in your text, Slp1 is in fact female not male as you suggest.--Shakehandsman (talk) 04:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

User:Trish Wilson has made a grand total of 134 edits to wikipedia. Many were on this page and talk page. None have occurred since November, 2007. A cursory review of the edits suggest they are problematic due to the sources used - a lot of newspaper articles and the like. The best reaction to this is to remove most news articles and replace, if possible, with scholarly books and journal articles. What matters more than who made an edit, is if the sources added were reliable, accurately summarized, and given appropriate weight. Rather than trying to figure this out exactly, may I suggest scanning the reference list for unreliable sources and removing them, and any text verified by them, if a substitute can't be found. There have, however, been several series of sustained POV-pushes by User:Michael H 34 over the past couple years, which I have been witness to and had to deal with. But ultimately this is irrelevant - if an POV-pushing editor uses good sources to accurately substanitate their edits, that's all that matters. May I suggest removing the COI tag from the page, it's a gross over-reaction and there have been hundreds of edits in the meantime. Instead, I would again suggest reviewing the sources to eliminate the lower-quality ones. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with removing the COI tag. It's overkill. Trish is long gone and COI wouldn't really apply even if she weren't. COI is when I cybermud edit the article cybermud. Trish was extremely POV but she never really constituted a COI issue.--Cybermud (talk) 20:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with some of the arguments here. COI also covers one's competitors, and campaigning, see Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#Campaigning. Given that Trish is a dedicated activist against fathers' rights organisations and a former NOW member the tag fits in with that regard, though of course POV is a bigger issue. Anyway, given recent changes to the article and the length of time that has passed I'm now happy to remove the tag. I've added some guidance on Trish's talk page just in case she decides to return. I also think it is important to understand the history of an article in order to appreciate the state it might be in today. --Shakehandsman (talk) 21:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I've read through the talk page of Trish Wilson, and it becomes quite clear in the very first post there as to who she is and her involvement in this issue.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Trish_Wilson#Father.27s_Rights--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC) Therefore I retract any caution I urged on the part of Cybermud. Slp1 and Trish have interacted significantly and given that she' posted on Trish Wilson's talk page a number of times [[2]] it's highly likely Slp1 knew who exactly Trish Wilson was.--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Who cares? Besides casting inappropriate aspersions on an experienced editor, you're missing the point. You can use TW's contribution history to check what she actually added to the page. Review the current page to see if it's still there. If it is, check the references - are they reliable? Many TW added were not. If not, remove. If so, are they accurately summarized? If not, rephrase and improve. Or, just do a good read-through of the page itself and look for similar issues. Those edits were three years ago, even if they were an issue then, Wilson is not here now so the tag is inappropriate. Wilson was never a major contributor, I've made far more edits to the page than she has and she hasn't edited here in years. So clean up rather than using the tag as a badge of shame or to "warn" readers. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:FLAT Justification for Removing Fringe Opinions

Can we use WP:FLAT as a valid reason to delete references to fringe opinions in this article that do not represent the view of a majority or significant minority of Father's Rights advocates?Ebikeguy (talk) 19:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps. I certainly found the section on Wikipedia:FLAT#Dealing_With_Dedicated_Fringe_Advocates particularly informative here so thanks for that and recommend others read it.--Shakehandsman (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

How do you determine if a viewpoint is "fringe" versus "majority"? Unlike the dimensions of the earth, which is a well-agreed upon fact as an oblate sphere, the opinions of FRM are contested, subject to interpretation, and based on human opinions. I would suggest that, as always, the best solution is to rely on the most reliable sources - generally books by scholarly publishing houses and in particular peer-reviewed journals. As I've said before - editor opinion is not an acceptable reason to remove a source. What you believe to be "fringe" could be completely mainstream in my opinion - the only way to settle the disagreement is to verify the text with the appropriate reliable sources, giving due weight based on their number, quality and prominence. The latter is not easy to do, but the only way to resolve disagreements is via the use of sources. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

As Jimbo Wales states "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;". Therefore people either need to cite notable fathers' rights groups who promote such concept, otherwise we should delete the information. The material might belong in an article on fathers' rights extremists, though of course that's probably not going to be notable enough to be created.--Shakehandsman (talk) 19:57, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and this is addressed using reliable sources. So, the process would be - add only reliable sources to the page; remove unreliable sources; attribute weak sources. I agree to all of these but the issue we must agree on is which sources are reliable? I would argue that personal webpages are not; most news stories are not; self-published books (like Michael Flood's Xlibris article, used four times) are not. Scholarly books are, as are peer-reviewed journals. Criticisms of other scholarly books and articles are, and should definitely be included. Webpages of individual organizations would be, in my opinion, weak sources and require a statement like "X organization states that..." rather than "the FRM states that..." WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:27, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE Violations in This Article

As written, this article contains ideas from a fringe segment of the father's rights movement regarding, among other things, men forcing women to have abortions. This is a violation of WP:FRINGE, and these references should be removed. An infobox above the WP:FRINGE article contains the language: "Fringe theory in a nutshell: To maintain a neutral point of view, an idea that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea." Ebikeguy (talk) 19:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

My edit to that section may have resolved the issue. It no longer says that men are advocating for forced abortions, but it does say that Fathers' rights movements have sought equal rights in terms of adoption, visitation in cases of unwed parents, prevention of abortion and the ability to provide input into the termination of a pregnancy, and the issue of forcing fatherhood on unwilling fathers (deal with via the term "financial abortion" with a comment from Kim Buchanan that pretty much says "yeah, be responsible for birth control then jackasses"). Is that acceptable? I agree the previous discussion of "forced abortions" sourced to Sherry Colb's web article was inadequate. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:49, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Domestic Violence edits

Am glad to see this edit [[3]] by W L U. The long discussion of the reciprocity of DV and validity of CTS was really a tangent of very little value to the FRM article (great content for Domestic violence or even Men's rights though.) The key issue is false allegations (and allegations of false allegations) of DV as a tactic to gain an advantage during custody proceedings and the continuous expansion of DV to include emotional, psychological, intellectual and financial "abuse" as forms of "violence."--Cybermud (talk) 21:17, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Seconded, detailed debates about domestic violence belong elsewhere.--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Note that the threshold is the reliability of the reference, not the opinion contained. I wouldn't use most of those references anywhere else, bar the journal articles. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:13, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Bad sentence

The article contains

Members of fathers' rights groups are purported to cast their personal troubles as pressing social problems, and are viewed as trying to use rhetorical strategies to elicit emotional responses.

The first reference is not available for free online, but the abstract is (it's also 20 years old), while the second reference is fully available. Having read both I think that the above statement stinks. It's a grossly POV oversimplification of the sources which (at least the latter) actually says that both sides in policy debates "cast personal troubles..." This statement is mis-used and taken out of context in a way that aims to dismiss all FRA as whiners.--Cybermud (talk) 21:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Good example of a reliable source providing a reference for a statement that is clearly in violation of WP:NPOV. The same statements could be made, and referenced, for an extremely wide array of groups (social, political, recreational, etc.), and inclusion of such overly-broad generalization would be in violation of NPOV in all cases. Ebikeguy (talk) 21:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Another bad sentence tied to a crap reference:

Critics state that some fathers' rights groups are more interested in enabling men to re-establish authority over their children and ex-partners and that issues of power and control in cases of domestic violence and child abuse are ignored.

The reference here is to a women's advocacy site (womensabuseprevention.com) and is the opinion of "survivors" of domestic violence. I'm going to remove this and its reference. I expect this is non-controversial and won't belabor the point.--Cybermud (talk) 21:52, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I support removing the second but replaced the first. The fact that there are two references supporting the same statement despite being separated by 22 years suggests continuity in the movement. It may need to be reworded to better support a nuanced understanding of the issue - but outright removal seems inappropriate to me. Two references underscores the fact that this does seem to be a relevant, appropriate statement. I disagree that it is a violation of NPOV - "neutral" doesn't mean "uncritical" and the threshold for the difference is the reliability of the sources. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Criticism is fine but there is a total lack of balance. Similarly if the section is titled "political and social views" then they should be listed in that order.--Shakehandsman (talk) 00:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There were not two real sources to begin with. If you actually read the second it, quite literally, cited the first. That is to say they were really the same reference and I still disagree with it for the reasons above with the additional disagreement with your claims of 22 year continuity. If I were to nuance this it would literally be to say critics of the fathers' rights movement as well as members of the FRM "are purported to cast personal problems.." and that just really seems meaningless to me.--Cybermud (talk) 00:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll remove it for now, until I can give it a more thorough read and opinion (could be tomorrow, could be never). I'll post a suggested edit on the talk page first. If I do replace it, I'll try to add better sources. But note that just because a source is old does not necessarily mean it is inaccurate or improper. I would wonder if there was a later source that was contradictory, or subsequent research that modified the initial conclusions. But I'll have to look for them. Also, if an order is wrong, that's a reason to edit to correct, not remove. Prose, logic and phrasing can always be improved, but shouldn't be removed outright for reasons of poor wording. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:43, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't giving the poor order as a reason for removal, just simply pointing out an error, though looks like Cybermud has founds significant problems anyway. Given the relative youth of much of the Father's Rights movement, not to mention the huge changes in the movement, older sources may be problematic. To quote from Wikipedia:Reliable_sources_and_undue_weight "Age of the source and rate of change of the subject—Where a subject has evolved or changed over time a long standing source may not be accurate with respect to the current situation. To interpret utility one must appreciate how the subject has changed and has that change impacted on any of the salient points of the source information. Historical or out of date sources may be used to demonstrate evolution of the subject but should be treated with caution where used to illustrate the subject."--Shakehandsman (talk) 00:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Revert

I've reverted the recent change to the page to this version. Here is my reasoning:

• I didn't replace the text removed here. I believe I was the editor to include that statement, but I agree it's at minimum in the wrong section. Could possibly be placed elsewhere in the page, but as an isolated news story I'm not really seeing it as having a major impact here.
• Replaced Michael Flood as a writer. Flood has one of his topics of interest listed as "men's movements as a backlash to the feminist movement". That seems to fit. Flood, though critical of the FRM in some of his writings, is none the less writing about a topic within his scholarly expertise. It might be worth including a reference to each writer, to establish a list of works that verifies they have contributed to the debate. Flood at least, however, is already mentioned in the body so that's a bit redundant. I've retitled the section as "Notable contributors" since one can write about the topic without being a "supporter", the previous title. A better approach might be to simply incorporate the work of each "notable contributor" into the body text and remove the list completely.
• The biggest change is of course, the ghettoization of the criticisms to a "criticisms" section. As Slp1 says, WP:NPOV/WP:STRUCTURE and WP:CRITICISM all state that criticisms should, when possible, be included in the section they are most relevant to. Specifically:

Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents.[1] It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact: details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false — an implication that may not be appropriate. A more neutral approach can result from folding debates into the narrative, rather than distilling them into separate sections that ignore each other.

— From WP:STRUCTURE

Since each criticism refers to the ideas stated by the FRM authors previously, it makes far more sense to include them in the appropriate section rather than have a criticisms section that hails back to something far earlier in the page. The fact is, the main points have had reactions, published in reliable sources, that are appropriate to include in a way that clearly demonstrates the main point is not uncritically accepted. I fail to see how the status quo, by keeping with the recommendations of policy and guideline, violates NPOV. Neutrality requires that we portray the topic as percieved in the relevant scholarly community, and the relevant scholarly community sees the FRM as problematic.

As I said prior, the criticism section can easily be renamed to "response" or "reception." Most of what I put in the, so titled "criticism" section didn't really fit well in the section I removed it from to begin with. I suggest a look at the feminism article and how it has a "response" section as an example. Back to the question of "supporters" vs. "critics," there are clearly two camps here. One, the actual FRM who is almost, as a rule, critical of 3rd wave feminism and, pro-feminist/women's studies advocates who maintain that the FRM has no valid issues. That is to say there is an ideological divide here and it's simply disingenuous to present pro-feminist authors as speaking on the FRM from a purely unbiased and scholarly/academic perspective. The article, as some would seem to like to make it, is like having pro-life supporters get to come and write the article on pro-choice where they get to say that pro-choice advocates are using a "rhetorical strategy to elicit an emotional response" but really just want to murder babies. When individuals who are clearly opposed to even the ostensible principles of the FRM start to opine as the their "true" motivations it should be clear that they are even opposed to their stated goals.--Cybermud (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's hardly revolutionary that a commentator fails to criticize their own approach and ideology - that's why we insist on reliable, secondary, generally independent sources. Proclaiming one side "pro feminist" and dismissing them on that basis is inappropriate you need to find sources that criticize those sources. We don't insist that scholarly sources be, or be represented as unbiased - but we do insist that any qualifications require reliable sources. Pro-life/pro-choice, evolution/creationism, AIDS research/AIDS denialism, all get treated the same way - due weight is demonstrated through the use, quality and reliability of the best sources, not through our opinion. In some cases there is an assymetrical relationship because one side has all the cards - evolution/creationism for instance. This isn't the case. If you insist there is an ideological divide, I insist you provide sources to substantiate this point with sources, not simple assertions. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually the evolution/creationism example is quite apropos in some ways. Creationism is not taught in universities (for good reason IMHO, but that's not really relevant atm.) There are some 600 Women's Studies programs in US universities. Most of these programs have an explicitly stated goal of political activism and view their studies and publications as part of their political advocacy in a fashion that some call academic lobbying. Conversely there is no Men's Study program anywhere in the US or probably the world. Even the new "Gender Studies" are just rebranded Women's Studies programs. This actually does create a prima facie case of one side holding almost all the cards when it comes to policies like WP:RS.

• Parental alienation syndrome is a controversial construct which has little empirical support and minimal acceptance in the psychological and legal scholarly community. This edit is inappropriate since no mental health or legal entities accept PAS or PAD as anything let alone as disorders. It has appeared in courts of law, but has no actual acceptance by the relevant legal bodies. Parental alienation is more accepted, but PA and PAS/D are not the same things. This statement doesn't need a {{fact}} tag, it needs to be removed as original research by an editor - which is inappropriate. The perception seems to be that there are "right" and "wrong", possibly "important" and "irrelevant" information - on wikipedia, there is not. There is reliable information that is used to verify text in a manner giving due weight to the mainstream opinion - but that requires sources, not opinion on the part of the editor. And as a point of fact, parental alienation itself is controversial [4].

Sorry that's just wrong. Parental Alienation has widespread support. You are conflating it with PAS which is entirely invalid. The use of PA in court is not controversial. Brazil passed a law making PA a criminal offense. Even when not called a "mental disorder" the effects and reality of PA are not subject to serious debate by anyone.--Cybermud (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Please provide sources to substantiate your point. The parentl alienation page is not so clear, with only moderate support among legal and mental health scholars - the concept is not equal to PAS, but is itself controversial. Sources are more important than opinion. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough there are plenty of sources for that, but I do agree that the parental alienation is quite poor whereas the PAS article is pretty good (on a personal note i'm pretty ambivalent on PAS but have no such qualms with PA.) It's similar to the difference between defining someone who is vain as having a mental disorder. The existence of vanity is not disputed, but the existence of a mental disorder for it would likely be controversial.--Cybermud (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

For starters there's this very timely article[[5]]

Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lerhmann, chair of the American Bar Association's family law section, said the issue of possible alienation can be raised in child custody proceedings whether or not any such phenomenon is classified as a disorder by health professionals. "Anyone who's in this business knows there are situations where that in fact is happening - and sometimes it's alleged but is not happening," she said. "Even if it's not in the manual, relevant evidence can still be brought in."

--Cybermud (talk) 17:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

And this [[6]]

The fourth and last myth is that alienation isn’t even a legitimate issue because it isn’t listed in the DSM -- the psychology profession’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The manual is the clinician’s bible - a guide to symptoms and syndromes and the definitive diagnosis on any legitimate mental health condition. The latest edition of the DSM is the DSM-IV-TR, the fourth edition with revised text. The DSM is an evolving document. At one time the DSM listed homosexuality as a deviant condition - an illness or sickness. Not any longer. Conversely, at one time anorexia didn’t exist, diagnostic wise, in the DSM. Today it does. “Inclusion in the DSM is not an instantaneous event,” says Dr. Barry Brody, the executive director of Forensic Family Services and a licensed marriage and family therapist in Miami Florida. “For example, Giles de La Tourette first described his syndrome in 1885. But Tourette’s Disorder didn’t appear in the DSM until 1980 - 95 years later.” Inclusion in the DSM is a conservative and deliberate scientific process that includes reviewing the scientific literature regarding a particular diagnostic entity. “Parental alienation is a fairly new phenomina,” Israel explains. “As psychologists see more cases, they’ll begin to see the patterns. Parental alienation has very clear, defined patterns. That’s what the DSM is looking for - definite criteria or symptoms that equals a specific syndrome.” “If we accept the logic that a diagnostic entity must be in the DSM for it to exist,” Brody concludes, “that logic leads to the inevitable conclusion that mental illness didn’t exist before 1952. That was the year that the first DSM was published.”

from the Richmond County Bar Association Journal.--Cybermud (talk) 22:13, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

And of course the aforementioned Brazilian law criminalizing parental alienation [[7]]. Any of this seem to work as a reliable source? To clarify, what you called "original research" was my statement that PA need not be recognized as a mental disorder to be a recognized phenomenon. I also have books that I can cite, but that's more work for me than weblinks and harder for you to verify. Either way it's now clear to me that I was wrong to assume that simply stated PA (as opposed to PAS) exists and is noncontroversial would be noncontroversial.--Cybermud (talk) 22:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

There's also this, very up to date article on a new book by mental health experts from 12 countries urging adding PA to the next DSM [[8]]. With that I will be re-adding the edit on PA that you removed as "completely unsupporterd" OR. The ONLY group that says PA is junk science and completely unsupported is feminist ideologues who view it as a concept that helps men (the sex most likely to be alienated as non-custodial parents) and are willing to throw alienated women under the bus in the process to avoid that in an archetypal example of what happens when "research" is guided by activism. In response to your earlier comment about the FRM being equally susceptible to confirmation bias, I'd be very interested to see a single example of a study produced by the FRM or MRM. Neither of them have an "academic arm" to produce scholarly research nor do they have, literally, 10's of millions of tax dollars supporting their "research." There are 600 women's studies programs in the US (mostly in public universities) but not a single men's studies program. In this case there is only research by feminist gender activists vs research by unbiased medical health professionals. While the MRM certainly does cite studies favorable to them, they are not funded, in any way, to create those studies in the first place.--Cybermud (talk) 05:28, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

• This edit appears to be inappropriate, since it is sourced in part to a journal. The Calb citation is inadequate, but Buchanan 2007 is very reliable, and should be used in preference. I've expanded and modified that point. The overall important goal is to include the point, counterpoint and discussion - not to separate it out or remove it because it is personally distasteful. We edit and demonstrate NPOV by sources, not our own preferences. The more reliable the source, and the more of them there are, the more due weight they should get. Newspaper articles are less relevant and important than scholarly volumes, but still beat out "I just don't like it". Claiming "fathers' rights is not about forcing women to have an abortion" ignores the fact that part of the debate is an argument whether fathers can indeed force women to have an abortion. There is a point-counterpoint. It should be explored, not removed. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:16, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I have undone your edit. I suggest not encompassing numerous edits, for various distinct issues, in one massive edit as that makes the work of untangling it to undue parts of it exponentially more work.--Cybermud (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll be undoing your undo, but I'll do it in stages. The end result will be the same. You haven't addressed any of the issues I have raised here by anything but opinion, with no reference to policy, guidelines or sources. Please base your edits and talk page postings on policies and guidelines with sources to substantiate necessary content. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

If you click the "simple" link in your name I'm pretty sure there's something in there about common sense. In any case I suggest avoiding broad assertions and all-encompassing edits and make the subjects of discussion concrete and tied to specific article content (such as the PA/PAS discussion above.)--Cybermud (talk) 16:42, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

If we cover ever random minor argument put forward by some unknown nutcase then where would we be? Sections of this article are still clear attack pieces and this needs to stop. It can be seen in the edit history that one of the most prominent anti-fathers rights campaigners has edited extensively here and as far as I can tell their additions have not been reviewed or any caution urged. The main problem is the deliberate attempt to focus on extremists group or individuals and ignore the work of the mainstream. It's a shame people continue to make this article worse rather than deal with what are very clear problems. Cybermud can you maybe also deal with the information in relation to the conviction for stalking of one member of the blackshirts as no one else has bothered to solve the problem despite unanimous agreement it is problematic (funny how no one else has bothered to fix something that everyone agrees on). Thanks--Shakehandsman (talk) 16:14, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It appears that there in no consensus to exclude references to fringe elements in the movement calling for men to be able to demand that a woman abort the child that he fathered, so such references should probably be left in for now. What I would like to see is a reliable reference to a source showing that this opinion really does come from fringe elements and is not the typical view of father's rights proponents. I can look for such a ref this weekend. If someone beats me to it, so much the better. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

yes but much of the article seeks to focus on the extreme fringe. You don't see this anywhere else on Wikipedia. Does the feminism article deal with the SCUM manifesto and murdering all men as one of the schools of thought? There's certainly more high profile feminists proposing such concepts than there are fathers seeking the right to impose abortions. Even the term "financial abortion" seems a little out of place to be honest and suggests use of weasel words.--Shakehandsman (talk) 17:37, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I have yet to see a reliably sourced reference that supports the claim that fringe elements exist who want the right to force women to have abortions. Even the cited news article made that as an off-hand comment. Such a source would be poor for even a noncontroversial claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources. The burden of proof here is really upon editors who want to include a claim that there's a significant minority or fringe that is advocating for this idea. We do not assume that the FRM, or some part thereof, supports forced abortions and need to disapprove it. Unless there is a reputable source for such a claim no time or effort should be expended to disprove it and anyone who thinks it should be will first need to give me proof they have stopped beating their wife (or mother if wife doesn't apply.)--Cybermud (talk) 17:40, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Just re-read the section, note even the strident comments by Kim Buchanan basically dismissing the possibility that there is any form of gender discrimination here. It's just like so many other sections with no such strong phrasing supporting the case for a father to be able to opt out. As for forced abortions, it really would be better to focus on mainstream debates that people have actually heard of, eg the need for males to have similar contraception options to women.--Shakehandsman (talk) 17:47, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

TO quote relevant Wikipedia polices here:

From Jimbo Wales, paraphrased from this post from September 2003 on the WikiEN-l mailing list:

• If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;
• If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;
• If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it does not belong in Wikipedia regardless of whether it is true or not and regardless of whether you can prove it or not, except perhaps in some ancillary article.--Shakehandsman (talk) 18:56, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't disagree. Is there a Wikipedia policy that states your sentiments explicitly? If so, let's use it to divest this article of fringe opinions. Ebikeguy (talk) 19:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not just fringe opinions, the fringe is the focus of this article in different ways too, e.g. the conviction for stalking refers to one single member of a non-notable, extreme groups that long longer exists.--Shakehandsman (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Please note that I had removed the "forced abortion" point in my initial revert, and pointed to it in my edit summary ("revert and modification, particularly to the parental and reproductive rights section"). The page no longer mentions forced abortions, it was sourced to an inadequately reliable webpage and thus subject to the WP:UNDUE requirements of NPOV. What other elements are objectionable? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:51, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Reading the section in its current form there's too much focus on fathers stopping abortions relative to those arguing about father's being able to terminate their rights. The later is far more of a mainstream opinion with it being advocated by the likes of Sacks, therefore this should surely be the focus of the paragraph rather than just an "also" point bolted on? Similarly perhaps the section, could be less polarised and extreme, covering the far more moderate view of fathers simply wanting to be informed if they partner is planning an abortion.--Shakehandsman (talk) 00:21, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Great, find sources to verify these points and integrate them into the page. This will greatly help it. Again, reliable sources - scholarly books, journal articles, perhaps the opinions of notable commentators or scholars, perhaps lengthy news articles in respected publications (i.e. Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and the like, less so regional newspapers). If you can substantiate that the FRM spans a gamut of viewpoints, that's tremendous. Put them in and nuance it. Use a table if you can. I don't really care either way - I'm just concerned about the sourcing. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:29, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

defining a movement according to who: one view

I'm addressing this because it was brought up elsewhere regarding this article, and this talk page is a more appropriate forum.

In my view, this article, like probably most articles about movements, should primarily state what the movement is about with an emphasis on how it is seen by those of its proponents who are generally recognized as such by many of its followers, complemented by third-party analyses and criticisms integrated into the general text, not in a separate section. Criticisms should not be the majority of the article, since other articles serve that role. Opposing movements effectively embody criticisms of each other and an article on each opposing movement being mostly about the respective movement with opposing criticisms being concise helps to produce neutrality in the combination of opposing articles.

Were the movement a single organization, or the article about a single organization, then what the organization is about should be drawn primarily from the organization's official sources accompanied by outside reliable analyses plus criticisms. I think religions offer an example of how giving priority to outsiders' descriptions over official ones can be misinformative. The most populous religion in the world, and thus every religion, is outnumbered by people with viewpoints that contradict the first religion's at least partly, and it would be very easy to get a description of any religion as being a bunch of misguided evildoers who should be rescued and deprogrammed or maybe simply killed. There is a problem that an official position could be words to the effect of "we're the wonderful people and that's all you need to know", but most major organizations in my experience do have informative and relatively self-distinguishing position statements that summarize what they're about, so that, in the case of religions, internal descriptions will reasonably and informatively distinguish between, say, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, and Wicca.

Some organizations refuse to speak for themselves and even deny their own existence. As I recall, although I may be wrong about this, some members of the U.S. branch of La Cosa Nostra (more colloquially, the Mafia, in the U.S.) have argued that the organization is simply about "courage" and several other qualities we often commend; I think other members have argued that it is mainly a business that gives customers what they want and that it is not much different from legal aboveground businesses that break the law and get away with it because they're big. At the same time, the Mafia has traditionally denied its own existence, making getting its official statements essentially impossible or nearly so, at least in reliable, verifiable, and sourceable form. Because the Mafia chooses to hide itself and its purposes, there's probably not much choice other than accepting the publishing of descriptions from its opponents as the predominant description, although if neutral parties' descriptions exist then they should appear (I think there's been some scholarship to that effect), along with the criticisms they have so amply earned.

Wars are perhaps the most severe case of people on one side seeing its own side as the ultimate or penultimate embodiment of Good and the enemy as the ultimate or penultimate embodiment of Evil with little communication across the dividing line. It can take a while and a lot of deaths just to seriously begin to find common ground once war begins.

I'm profeminist, have participated in feminist work, and have heard definitions of opponents to the effect that they're the terrible people without the proponents' words. This is not useful, because then it's harder to understand why the good side is needed, or why it has to work so much. As a profeminist, I've read books by antifeminists and by people who couldn't care less about feminism but dwell on its subjects. I've also read and listened in fields such as alien abduction, remote viewing, auras on people, and UFOs and did so criticizing on narrow grounds because it's important to preserve the parts that are probably credible rather than use a broad brush to sweep out the babies with the bath water.

Even the worst of criminal defendants should have the right to state in their defense anything they want, subject to some limits such as against filibustering (if guilty the trial should end so they can start serving their sentence and if innocent the trial should end so they can walk). The main reason for letting them put forth any defense they want is that it might turn out that they're right. That's what juries, judges, and the listening public decide. The defendant takes the chance that their defense won't be believed, especially if they're caught lying. But, even if the chance that they're right is atomically small, society and not just the defendant benefits by society discovering that the defendant is right, when that's the case. And, when the defendant is guilty, i.e., wrong, knowing how they explain themself and by implication how they think when they do what they do is critical to determining our best response to the defendant and to like-minded people in the future. That's why I want Wikipedia articles to reflect what a movement is about from its own distinct and informative statements plus well-grounded, thoughtful, and informative third-party analyses plus criticisms, in about that order of priority.

I'm not planning to edit this article, don't have enough knowledge to do much editing here, and am not judging its current or recent states. This is more a view of certain drafting principles.

Nick Levinson (talk) 08:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Sources used in this article

There is a problem with sources that are critical of the Fathers' rights movement being presented as viewpoints of members of the fathers' rights movement (or broader Men's rights movement). For starters there's Michael Flood who may, in fact, be biologically male, but is not considered to be an advocate of men's rights generally or father's rights specifically. I can't stress how absurd it is that critics of this "movement" are being presented as authoritative sources for the ideology of it.

Another source, besides Flood, that is not presented in its proper context is oft-cited "Defiant Dads: Fathers' Rights Activists in America" by Jocelyn Elise Crowley. This book has been the source of sustained criticism by advocates of father's rights who liken its claims of even-handed treatment of the topic to Fox News' claims of being "fair and balanced." Admittedly, I haven't read Crowley's book, but I have read comments on it by father's rights advocates whose opinions I've come to respect greatly. Additionally reading that she is a Women's Studies professor goes a long way towards me discounting her out of hand after having read "Professing Feminism" by Daphne Patai. In any case, how can someone who is not only not a member or supporter of a "movement" but is actually a critic be seriously considered as a reliable source for the goals of the movement? Well-referenced criticisms are one thing, but they should be presented as criticisms. Not with intellectual dishonesty that pretends they are non-partisan analyses by scholars with no personal stake in the topic or, even worse, present critics of the topic as spokesmen for it.--Cybermud (talk) 05:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

OK I've discovered even more issues. The situation is so bad that I've asked for input on the NPOV noticeboard where I've outlined the main concerns.--Shakehandsman (talk) 07:19, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Michael Kimmel is also frequently cited, but he's not just a sociologist interested in masculinities, he's a decidedly pro-feminist sociologist that is also hostile to Father's Rights groups. He is the president of NOMAS and, to quote an article on the front page of his site today:

Want To Be A Good Dad? Support Mom And Avoid Father’s Rights Groups

Over the past decade, fatherhood has been all the rage and dads are naturally the talk of pundits on Father’s Day. So let’s say you’re a divorcing dad and you’re having trouble coping. You look for help on the internet and discover the father’s rights movement.

Be warned – avoid father’s rights groups like the plague. According to the pro-feminist men’s group The National Organization For Men Against Sexism (NOMAS), “male supremacist groups (“Father’s Rights”) have caused unspeakable harm to our country and to our children by encouraging abusive fathers, often with little past involvement with their children, to seek custody as a tactic to pressure a mother to return or to punish her for leaving. “Shared parenting”, “friendly parent”, involvement of both parents and other concepts that seem fair and benevolent have instead been used to manipulate courts and legislatures to help abusive fathers.

Again, these are feminist groups that, frankly, view men as biologically and culturally flawed to begin with and father's as unnecessary opining as to the beliefs and goals of people interested in father's rights and, here on Wikipedia, they are characterized as, not just authoritative sources for information on father's rights groups, but also members of those groups who act as their spokesman. It should go without saying but quotes like the above and sources that make them would be universally reviled by anyone interested in father's rights advocacy. When authors like this are cited it should be clarified that they are hostile to father's and father's rights and have views that are diametrically opposed to any that the mainstream FRM would actually espouse--Cybermud (talk) 15:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I think we should review the principle of sourcing for WP. We seek the highest quality sources for the articles, per WP:SOURCES. That obviously includes the writings of scholars include Crowley, Flood, Collier, Sheldon and others, who have been studying the movement for years. Article subjects don't get to decide the sources are considered acceptable and unbiased, and exclude those they don't like. Flood is indeed critic, as is noted, but that doesn't mean that we cannot use him as a source, particularly when (as in this case) any information cited to him has also been very deliberately cited to another source as well.(Apart from quotes of his opinions that is). Crowley's award-winning Cornell UP book (which I have actually read) is in fact considered to be the "the most comprehensive text ever written about fathers' rights groups", even-handed], and has been well-reviewed in several academic journals [9][10][11][12]. This is precisely the sort of source we should for the article. Kimmel is not cited in the article so I am not sure the relevance of the comments about him.

If you want to argue this further, I suggest a posting at the WP:RSN. But I'm pretty sure what the outcome will be. --Slp1 (talk) 23:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

To be honest we need to address the more basic and fundamental problems with this article first please. I.e. material totally contradicted by the source, the absolute focus on extremist groups and no one else with the implication they represent everyone else, censorship of mentions of moderate groups etc. That's not to say we don't need to debate this issue also as that's clearly the case, but I'd propose we deal with the most obvious and irrefutable problems first given that there are so many issues. Thanks.--Shakehandsman (talk) 00:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, sourcing is a very fundamental issue, and it is important that this is sorted out soon, if there are going to be continued arguments that we should only use FR sources for this article. But if there is material that is "totally contradicted by the source" then please list them in a new section below You keep mentioning that the views of moderate groups are being "censored". Please note that these kinds of accusations need diffs; in general it is best to avoid both the argument about sourcing and censorship claims, as these are redflags about tendentious editing and advocacy editing. Personally I don't remember any significant deletions of the sort in the last few years. But still, if you have suggestions for additions supported by reliable sources, please do suggest them. Slp1 (talk) 01:04, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Kimmel is a co-author of one of those books, but I don't want to track it down ATM.

Actually what I'd like is for you to do is stop saying that I "discount" sources or disagree with including them or argue "we should only use FR sources for the article.: My disagreement has been very clear in that critical sources should be properly contextualized for what they are. I have actually read the incredibly well-referenced and well-regarded book by the FR "personal guru" Stephen Baskerville, "Taken Into Custody." With all due respect, seriously, I suggest you read it and "Professing Feminism," by feminist author and former women's studies professors Patai and Koertge, to get a feel for the academic integrity that pervades Women Studies programs. They are programs marked by a contempt for science, objectivity and math yet purport to be able to perform respectable studies without using the very tools of social and physical inquiry that modern day analysis is expected to have. Again, with all due respect there are literally mountains of garbage written about the FRM by Women's Studies majors that has been published by university presses. I cannot speak to "Defiant Dads" (though I did just order it so I can stop qualifying my comments on it,) but as a case in point there's "At the Heart of Darkness" by Drucilla Cornell, published by Princeton Press. Cornell describes the FRM as ""by nature irresponsible, slovenly, murderously aggressive, rapacious and polygamous, if one can even dignify their need to spew their sperm as widely as possible by identifying it with an institutional structure. Such ribald creatures, if left to themselves, will desert their families, inevitably yielding to their licentious sexuality and socially disruptive impulses..." What is her source for this? She doesn't have one, her claim is that this is how the FRM describes itself so she needs not substantiate it (she goes on to say that in light of the above men feel they need power in marriages to make them attractive enough to want to be husbands and fathers.) It's a logical fallacy to assume that just because a book comes from a "prestigious" press that it is anything more than a polished turd -- particularly on gender issues. I've read many similar accounts where, typically feminists, will find some looney toon dad to spout a bunch of hate and then pretend that his statements are representative of the broader movement. There are some 600 Women's Studies programs in US universities cranking out "academic" works but, knowing that these programs have explicit political aims above and beyond academia (this is not a controversial statement btw... political advocacy is one of most of these programs stated goals) I take anything they write with a grain (or a pound) of salt. As far as "peer reviewed" there is also the Sokal Affair where a "well-respected" academic journal with feminist leanings published a paper that was intentionally written to be nonsense about how things like gender could play a role in science and gravity, and the corollary science wars where feminists claim things like Einsteins equation is masculine (and hence flawed) Of course, like FR activists, scientists universally denounce these mischaracterization of the their work and methods.--Cybermud (talk) 01:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so you would like to properly contextualize what you consider to be the critical sources. The problem is that we want the "best, highest quality" sources. And like it or not, WP's definition of the best sources includes books published by highly reputable presses, which get good reviews, are the sources to be used. They are not to be marginalized as critical sources, no matter what your personal opinion of the books, or Women's studies programs or feminists or peer review is. --Slp1 (talk) 02:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not marginalizing to call a spade a spade. They are critical sources no matter what your personal opinion on my personal opinions. The best source to speak to the goals of the FRM are the members of the FRM.--Cybermud (talk) 04:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Well even if mentions of such groups hadn't been removed (which they have) then it's still incredibly problematic to focus on extremists groups and totally fail a single mention of any moderate group. At present this article simply covers angry fathers' rights protesters rather than any movement. I wouldn't normally make claims of censorship but it is clear that have been some ridiculous additions to this article which have been left in place for a long time and there are just so many issues that in all probability the removal was part of the process of making this into an attack piece. On re-reading your post I think you've misunderstood what I said (perhaps I phrased it poorly?). My point is that acknowledgement of the very existence of the moderate groups is almost nowhere to be found and they have been deleted from the article. This is just how fundamental the problems here are. Edit it seems the likes of Fathers & Families' views are hinted at from viewing the refs, yet the existence of such a key group and it's conduct/achievements etc and others just like it is nowhere to be found in the text> the implication is that all groups are basically as bad as the most extreme case anyone can possibly find on the planet--Shakehandsman (talk) 01:30, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

It's unclear to me what you mean. The only groups that are mentioned in the article are American Coalition of Fathers and Children, Fathers 4 Justice and Families Need Fathers. Are any of these extremist? Maybe Fathers 4 Justice at times, but they are cited in the article as refusing to support violence in the cause. There used to be many more groups mentioned, I remember now, thinking way back, but Michael H 34, a fathers' rights supporter, moved them to Fathers' rights movement by country in 2007. [13].

You are quite correct that many of the references citing the views of the FR movement come from these very same moderate groups whose opinions you seem to think the article is excluding. Thanks for noticing that and pointing it out. --Slp1 (talk) 02:39, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not just taking about groups mentioned in the article, but the groups the groups the article and data cited is based upon. The stalking conviction related to one member of some tiny Australian blackshirt group that appears to no longer even exist. Even you agreed that content in relation to such a group needs removing. This deceptive theme continues through some sections, basing material on the extremists or on non notable groups/people.--Shakehandsman (talk) 03:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

I forgot the link to the NPOV noticeboard, it has the summary of the concerns so far. I've uncovered yet another very serious issue in relation to the content about abortions. I'd say it's the worst bias out of any of them, well worth reading. Here is the link: [14]

Baskerville is extensively cited in the page. If there are issues with the page, then it must be demonstated by removing unsourced information and ensuring the sources are appropriately and adequately summarized. Inaccurate summaries need to be corrected, but if there is an actual imbalance in the page this can only be demonstrated by finding equally reliable sources and accurately incorporating them to verify new text. If those sources can't be located - that suggests that opinions about imbalance are not supported within the scholarly community. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Baskerville is cited extensively as "Baskerville says" whereas feminist perspectives are not qualified at all. Kind of like s1p1 calling us "father's rights activists" and the people who disagree with us "editors." Again, I'm generally not removing sourced content (besides saying men want the right to force abortions) I'm just accurately contextualizing it. Republicans don't get to define what the Democratic party's goals really are and article that went back and forth between the viewpoints of the two groups in every section would be tedious to read and crap prose. As the article stands today it is misnamed and should be called the "Fathers' rights movement debate" because that's what every section is about. This is a contentious and divisive issue where there are clearly two fairly diametrically opposed ideologies. Since this article is the Fathers' rights movement the best sources for it are naturally drawn from its supporters. It's fair to qualify statements with words like "FRA maintain.." or "According to the FRM..." but qualifying every section with a blurb about how the FRM is lying, abusive, misogynistic or dishonest is undue. All of these issues can be encapsulated in a response/reaction section.--Cybermud (talk) 16:31, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes I very much get the impression of an attempt to dismiss Baskerville's work as opinion whereas the language used to refer to criticism makes it appear to be superior and factual. The theme runs throughout the article.--Shakehandsman (talk) 16:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I would read that as evidence that Baskerville is the "minority" described in WP:UNDUE who need to be named. If the only person we can find to substantiate a large number of points is Baskerville, that indicates to me that he's perhaps not alone, but definitely the only one doing much publishing.

Please comment on the contributions, not the contributor. Slp1 is a respected, experienced, calm admin who is good at and respects sourcing and has had to deal with a lot of crap on this page. All pages are, and contain debate. Just like we put criticisms of George W. Bush's page rather than a separate "Criticisms of George W. Bush" page, the criticisms should stay on the page and stay stitched into individual sections where they make the most sense. I would suggest instead, fleshing out the "pro" side with reference to reliable sources. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:34, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that S1p1 seems to be a very experienced and reasonable editor and also agree that ad hominem criticisms are not constructive, but it was precisely, and only, in the context of her marginalizing views, apparently including mine, that are contrary to her own as "activist," that I have objected to her in any way outside of the substance of her edits. I'm not a father's rights activist who just came to WP to change this article and object to being characterized that way. I want this to be a good, accurate and encyclopedic article and don't doubt that she does as well -- even if we do not agree on what that means. I suggested some books to her in good faith and am, frankly, surprised she's never read Baskerville's seminal book on this subject as someone who has clearly spent a great deal of time on the article and has a lot to say about Baskerville.--Cybermud (talk) 21:00, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree more needs to be done to find sources, and perhaps there have been attacks on this page by newcomers but the level of longstanding bias that was (and still is) in this article is very troubling indeed. The way Slp1 dismisses edits by supposed fathers' right activists and at the same time citing banned editors as valid evidence that the article is too biased towards fathers is not really appropriate. Similarly you tell people not to attack the contributor but very early on in this debate one of the first things Slp1 said was "I don't have time to respond in detail with the bulk of these comments at present, but will briefly note that Shakehandsman's edits have consistently shown POV problems with regards to gender issues, and therefore I take any complaints with a pinch of salt." How's that for "comment on the contributions, not the contributor?" In reality I haven't had a single warning on my talk page in the best part of four years for a single indiscretion of any kind on Wikipedia (POV or otherwise), so such a comment is unjustified and completely unhelpful.--Shakehandsman (talk) 23:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Historically the page was the target of sustained POV-pushing by FRM activists. Slp1 never said "let's ignore SHM", only that she's not taking you at your word. I won't either. Want an edit to last? Source it. Slp1, like all experienced editors, is unconvinced by argumentation - sources matter. Sources, sources, sources. So let's drop the blame game - if you find reliable sources to substantiate your points and summarize them accurately, you will find that Slp1 is polite, reasonable, and happy to collaborate - to a fault because when I first arrived on the page I found her bar set too low as far as the quality of sources. So - get on google scholar/google books and start digging. Much of the talk page discussion is a waste of time since it's a debate (which wikipedia talk pages are not for) when what really matters is finding and summarizing reliable sources. I realize I'm repeating myself in nearly every section I post in - there's a very good reason. I want to, as soon as possible, cut off the "debate" approach in favour of locating appropriate sources. That is the page's starting point. A good source always beats out the opinion of an editor. Always. So please, let's focus on that. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 00:24, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Historically this page has been the clarion for misandrists. Baskerville has ben authoring here other feminists have been authoring here, Michael Flood is being tauted as an expert when he attacks Fathers in the face of opposing peer reviewed empircal evidence, there is no mention of the Y chromosome, there isminimalto non-existent citation of the peer reviewed empircal evidence demonstrating the criticality of fathers to their children's development. There is no Mention of Horn or Canfield, there is no mention of the Age of Enlightment, over the past decade it has been edited out.Much as Power and Control and the Framingham Eight have been removed at Wiki not however from the Body Scientific. BobV01 (talk) 04:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Michael Flood

In response to me qualifying the statements of Michael Flood as being pro-feminist. This is exactly the point I've been repeating. Context is important and it's not pejorative or prejudicial to qualify Flood's statements in such a way. Flood is even listed on pro-feminism as a significant pro-feminist author and on his own page as the editor of a pro-feminist website. Likewise we repeatedly, in this article, qualify statements as "FRA claim.." or assert, and that's fine. Anyone reading the article is likely to be aware of an ideological divide here and should be helped, by context, to see which views originate from where.--Cybermud (talk) 00:55, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a difference between someone who uses a specific explanatory and epistemic filter (Flood) and someone who actively advocates, professionally, for a viewpoint (Baskerville). Note how I qualified him as an associate professor as well as "president of the American Coalition of Fathers and Children and fathers' rights advocate". Do we need the latter two? Do they help? Should we remove one, or both? I'm not actually sure. In both cases, including things like "pro-feminist" and "fathers' rights activist" in my mind are prejudicial to the following statements and grant them less weight than what the sources actually deserve - recognition that both are scholars who are discussing their expertise. Should we note that Baskerville, for instance, only became involved in these issues after his own difficulties with divorce? Does that make him more reliable, or less? And this also underscores the need to substantiate many of these points with more than just his views, we need to expand the page to have more than just his opinions - surely there are more scholars who can substantiate these points. Baskerville is used as a citation 31 times on this page, and the number of times he is mentioned by name is also excessive. If he is the only person making these statements, that's an issue in my mind.

We could ask for a request for comment on this if you'd like, I'm not really sure how to proceed myself. I don't know if we're "providing context" or merely casting aspersions. Saying someone is "profeminist" on an article called "Fathers' rights movement" really seems like an implication that their work can be discarded and ignored because they're a misandrist. Again, a better approach in my mind would be to find references and rebuttals to Flood's work, if they exist. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the difference between advocacy and ideological perspectives but it's not so clear to me that there is a distinct demarcation between the two here vis a vis Flood and Baskerville. Baskerville is also very much an academic in the traditional sense on political philosophy, and Flood is also an activist on profeminist issues and, more specifically anti-FRM stances. Looking over some of his editorials at xyonline.com (not to mention the other articles there that call the FRM misogynist batterers of women) should quickly illustrate that. How someone reads the qualification of the source is completely subjective. As an example, I personally actually would interpret "profeminist" as misandric and be skeptical of subsequent conclusions. I'd probably also view them as rent-seeking, pandering and disingenuous and think of the ideological policing, heterophobia and academically based political advocacy in Women's Studies programs. But that's just me and my bias (and a distinct minority bias on WP, but I digress) as someone who views Feminism as yet another movement that traded its noble ideals for power some time between its 2nd and 3rd wave where it started inventing new, and mythical, inequities because it had run out of real issues. Someone else would read it and consider it the enlightened perspective. Likewise, others will read the "FRM claims..." and read "Batterers of women and children pretend..." As long as the context is accurate and NPOV we have done all we can.

I agree that Baskerville is cited by name excessively. As a significant mainstream author and advocate for the FRM movement, I would personally have no objection with some of his mainstream views being characterized as views of the FRM itself (much more so than unqualified views by Flood or Women's Studies professors), but I expect that there is no consensus there and some editors, probably citing Flood, will want to say that Baskerville expresses his own personal opinions, but that the FRM really just wants to rape and pillage and no consensus will be achieved without more sources. In some cases there are many other sources for things cited to Baskerville, his book, "Taken Into Custody" has 50 pages of citations including 974 references. In other cases, specifically related to some of the legal and public policy issues and their political implications, the research is his own and he may be the only scholarly source. I'll go through the various things referenced to him in the article and see how much I can reference elsewhere as well, but it will probably need to be next week--Cybermud (talk) 13:17, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

And you think that the members of the FRM are pure of thought and deed, solely occupied with the betterment of their children's livelihood rather than frustrated white males trying to retain power and influence in an increasingly diverse cultural marketplace? Look, there are many interpretive filters, and no one is "correct". Merely because this is the page about the FRM doesn't mean it should take the perspective of the FRM as a given and "proper". I would rather we simply leave these qualifications out unless there is a specific need on a specific point. How about this - rather than qualify it via our own opinions, we look for sources that comment on Flood and Baskerville's overall approach to the issue - or rebuttals of specific points. Also, when we're talking about peer-reviewed sources, then the "bar" is different. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal implies the peer reviewers have overseen the rigor and judged the publication to be reasonable and the analysis substanitated. Ergo, less need for "qualification" since the publication bears not just the author's approval, but also the reviewers' and journal editors'; you can't say after ever line "X said Y in Z publication about W" and shouldn't when it's a higly reliable source. The issue with Baskerville is that his word is taken as given for many, many statements - meanwhile the counterpoints are verified by many, many different scholars. That's where the unbalance is. Surely there are more sources out there that discuss the FRM from its own perspective than simply Baskerville. Let's try to find them. I'm not saying we take out Baskerville's work, and full-length books are certainly good sources. It's natural t hey be used a lot. But are they the only source for these points? If so, it would suggest that Baskerville really is a lone voice rather than summarizing and collecting numerous strands of thought and action within the FRM. Can we get extra sources expressing the same ideas? Can we try? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:56, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

No one is pure of thought and deed or free from POV. The views of the FRM may not be "given and proper" but the views of the FRM are the views of the FRM. I really don't know how that can be stated any clearer. I think the claim that the FRM is all "white males" is specious but there are bigger fish to fry with this article at the moment. I will come back to it, but there's a significantly growing movement for father's rights in Latin America amongst non-whites (such as myself) and most other predominantly non-white countries that don't have significant feminist movements marginalizing men generally, or fathers specifically, to make such a movement relevant (and/or have more pressing issues like sanitation and running water.) "Peer reviewed" in this context really means reviewed by ideologically similar peers doesn't it? It would be one thing if Flood had published papers in peer-reviewed academic journals published by university based programs dedicated to masculine issues (ie issues of specific relevance to boys and men), but such a situation would be predicated on such a university program and academic journal existing. Last year was the first time in academic history that, at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York, there was a, presumably annual, conference on male studies aimed at addressing the issues of men and boys. Going back to my previous comments on creationism/evolution, there really is an overwhelming imbalance in "academic research" by one side of this issue. I agree that saying "X said Y in Z publication about W" for every line would be tedious and make for poor prose, but that doesn't justify the opposite extreme of not qualifying or contextualizing viewpoints whatsoever. I think it really only needs to be done once, such as the first time Baskerville is mentioned by name saying "Political Science professor and FRA Stephen Baskerville.." and subsequently just saying "Baskerville.."--Cybermud (talk) 14:27, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

For that matter the entire page is strongly US-centric, not just white male centric, which needs to be corrected. The views of the FRM should be expressed as best they can with the most reliable sources available, but criticisms of and commentary on those viewpoints also have their place. Peer reviewed means peer reviewed, and according to wikipedia they are the best sources we have. I dislike the argument that peer review is a form of conspiracy and bias against specific viewpoints, and without specific, sourced criticisms of this topic in particular, that idea shouldn't affect editing of this or any page. Your comment suggests that all who criticize the FRM or publish in specific peer reviewed journal are so biased they are unwilling to consider alternative explanations or demand reasonable justification for their work. I dislike this approach and again go back to sources - if you have a source that substantiates this point, let's integrate it. If you do not, I would rather not address it. You can't exclude sources on the basis of "ideological bias" and if there is that strong of a bias, then it is reasonable to expect that bias to be explored in other peer-reviewed publications. If male studies is now a growing movement in academia, we should see more sources emerging to deal with this topic. Great, let's integrate them. But I would rather not use that apparent absence (which assumes that other journals dedicated to sociology, psychology, political science and gender studies in general do not address these topics) to selectively criticize, blatantly or more subtly, sources that unambiguously meet our criteria for reliability.

Note that the way you approach contextualizing Baskerville is the one I took in this edit. If there are other "contextualizing" statements (i.e. weaselly attempts to highlight an apparent bias of Baskerville or any other author) they should be removed. But again, if Baskerville is the only author writing on this, that puts him into the minority discussed in WP:UNDUE which means he shouldn't be getting so much text. Baskerville appears by name 17 times on the page as "baskerville says..." which seems excessive and again underscores either a significant lack of relevant sources that substantiate the points Baskerville makes, or excessive weight on a single opinion - even if it is reliable. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this page is too US centric as well and criticisms and commentary certainly have their place (I tried to make that place a "response/criticism" section to the disagreement of others.) Again, I've never said a given source should be excluded, what I've said is that the best source for the ostensible goals of the movement are sources within the movement. If a source is external to that movement, which Flood quite clearly is, and especially if they are ideologically hostile to the core tenants of it, they should be contextualized as such. I didn't mean to imply there was a conspiracy in peer reviewed journals to not publish contrarian views (that would be almost as bad as implying all men are secretly card carrying members of a "patriarchy" acting in lockstep to oppress women,) but rather that there is a confirmation bias where they are not likely to be critical of views they are already inclined to agree with. The previously mentioned Sokal affair is a classic example of this. Psychologists and sociologists are one thing, manifestly pro-feminist ones, like Flood, and Women's Studies scholars are something else. Again, I also agree that Baskerville is too extensively cited and will, for starters, go through all the Baskerville citations from "Taken Into Custody" (which I have) and see if I can source some of the statements to the place that Baskerville himself cited them to. I also have other books here that I will try to use to supplement the existing citations.--Cybermud (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Just to add to the US centric aspect, some of the mentions of Australia are inappropriate too. I don't have a great knowledge of notable countries, but certainly Canada is an obvious omission and Sweden certainly gets covered too in some texts. I also strongly agree regarding the white male bias too--Shakehandsman (talk) 16:03, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I would firmly disagree that the best source of the movement's goals are the movement itself, the best sources are always reliable, secondary sources. At best, statements from actual groups could be presented as "X organization says its goals are..." particularly since the main thrust of many critical sources is that "X organization says its goals are Y but they really more look like..." Confirmation bias is just as likely for the organizations themselves and the scholars who may be sympathetic to them, making it a non-starter reason to qualify opinions. As a general principle I would suggest we include expertise when necessary (i.e. Flood is a sociologist, Baskerville is a political scientist) and only include "X is an advocate for Y" when they lack other relevant qualifications or are publishing under their "advocate" rather than scholar hat.

There appears to be lots of sources, many critical and unused [15], [16], [17], and probably many more positive. Rather than criticizing a priori certain scholars and viewpoints, the sources should be reviewed for their reliability, depth and actual take on the subject - I'm often surprised that the actual statements made in sources do not match their summary on the page. The Sokal affair is something completely different - Sokal published utter gibberish and it was given an OK by a peer review an a very specific post-modern cultural studies journal and his point was about the mis-use of scientific concepts in nonscientific context. This is political science and sociology, which is a different field. We can't exclude, marginalize or downplay pro-feminest scholars because of their perspective, particularly considering they are the groups one would expect to have something meaningful to say.

More sources are of course better so if you can supplement Baskerville then that's excellent. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:54, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's rather naive to presume that Flood, or even Baskerville, have seperate hats for academia and advocacy. Certainly for Flood though since Women's Studies programs are somewhat famous for saying all academics is political (as there way for not apologizing for the blatant politicization of Women's Studies). Not only do they not view academic advocacy as a problem they are proud to be the academic arm of feminism in the political arena. The Sokal affair is actualy very topical to the abuse and disregard of science in Women's studies, although looking over the WP article I can see how that is not very clear. Social Text, the magazine, who published Sokal's now famous article, is a very feminist oriented periodical. It also published some of the key anti-science criticisms in the science wars. One of the ridiculous claims made in Sokal's paper was that the axiom of choice in set theory offers support for a pregnant women's right to choose. To quote from "Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies" (by feminist professors Patai and Koertge,) "although Sokal certainly didn't single out feminist analyses to bear the brunt of his criticism, in the discussion that took place in the heat of the Science Wars, these feminist commentaries often provide the most egregious and memorable examples of the pitfalls of research guided by activism insufficiently tempered by the traditional norms of scholarship."--Cybermud (talk) 02:49, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, and building upon the above, I would agree that the best sources on something are generally secondary, or even tertiary sources. Let me know if you can find some on this issue because I don't view the advocacy of Flood or Women's Studies to be secondary sources. The FRM openly views many of the problems faced by father's as externalities or direct consequences of modern day feminism. Both movements support positions that are diametrically opposed to one another (with both, ironically, claiming to want "equality.") As such, calling feminist sources "secondary and scholarly sources" while calling Baskerville et al "primary" sources is tantamount to calling the republican party a secondary (and hence more reliable) source for information on the democratic party.--Cybermud (talk) 03:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you drop the Sokal thing? Yes, peer review isn't perfect, but it's still, per policy, the most reliable set of sources we have. Unless you have a reference that specifically singles out any of the publications cited on this page, it's something to keep in mind but not enough to justify weakening a conclusion by portraying it as the rantings of a fringe lunatic. The Sokal affair means we don't take peer review as unchangeable gospel, it doesn't mean we can use it as a way to discount peer reviewed publications. Is Social Text used as a citation in this article? I can't find it. I agree peer review isn't perfect, I'm reading Sokal's book about the topic in question right now, but Sokal's point was about the unjustified use of scientific-sounding nonsense to make a postmodernist or unsubstantiated argument look superficially more convincing. Is that happening here? Can you source that it's happening here? If not, then I fail to see the relevance that can't be applied to all sources and your argument taken to its fullest extent would require qualifying all publications as "but peer review is imperfect". That's simply wrong, particularly since your issue is more that Flood is an activist rather than "Flood misuses quantum theory to make his arguments sound more convincing".

What you're advocating for is essentially qualifying an individual's commentary for their interpretive framework. I see that as having to apply to all, or to none, unless there is a source that demonstrates it is particularly egregious in a particular case. If you can find a source saying "Flood's use of pro-feminist sources/interpretations with regards the FRM weakens his argument because..." or something similar, I will support its use it the page. If you can't, you're singling out a single perspective for "qualification" - which is really "weakening" - because it looks like you don't disagree with it. The fact that the FRM blames feminism for many of the issues they find problematic is worth noting with an appropriate source, but it's not worth pointing out every author who uses a profeminist viewpoint because that compounds the problem by having a one-two punch of "FRM blames feminism for all their problems, and oh look, this guy is a feminist and can therefore be discounted". I see that as strongly nappropriate. I could be wrong, you could seek a request for comment on the issue and I would respect the response as part of the dispute resolution process.

Tertiary sources are encyclopedias and the like, and are usually only used for broad summaries. Primary sources would be news stories, experiments, press releases and the like. Per WP:PSTS we're supposed to focus on secondary. You may not view women's studies journals as secondary sources, but they are and again, the type of source that wikipedia is meant to be based on. Baskerville's book is not a primary source and I have no issue in using it, my issue is one of weight (way too much sourced to a single book and author) rather than original research where PSTS is cited. Is Baskerville really the only author who writes about the FRM in a positive way? That's a rather substantial problem, and as I see it the heart of the issue we're discussing in this section. Note that I've never tried to remove his work, my issue has always been an attempt to expand the use of other citations and authors. Calling women's studies and feminist sources "primary" doesn't change the fact that if they are talking about the FRM, they would be considered secondary. You may think that, but policy does not support you. I'm sorry if that seems unduly blaming, but there's no other way to put it. I simply don't see any support for your viewpoint. Again, if you disagree with me, I suggest a request for comment or possibly a posting on a noticeboard. I'm not sure which one, perhaps WP:NPOVN or WP:RSN. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:38, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Can you be more clear on what it is you "strongly disagree" with. You said "What you're advocating for is essentially qualifying an individual's commentary for their interpretive framework. I see that as having to apply to all, or to none." I'm sorry but I absolutely don't see where we disagree here. I believe I've been perfectly clear that I support the "all" option. Again you seem to be wanting to qualify Baskerville's opinions as the "personal opinions" of Baskerville the "FR activist" but leave Floods unquestionably pro-feminist viewpoint as completely unqualified. To be absolutely clear here, I support qualifying BOTH. And yes there are other sources besides Baskerville. You might try looking for them yourself rather than constantly exhorting others to do so since you seem to be the one most distressed by that fact.--Cybermud (talk) 16:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy to open an RFC if we can distill what it is we are in disagreement on. You keep adding edit summaries that claim strong disagreement and then write something, as I noted above, where I don't see disagreement. While I might object to your hyperbole in some statements, such as conflating my desire to pre-pend "Pro-feminist" in front of the citation for pro-feminist activist Michael Flood as "portraying it [Flood's statements] as the rantings of a fringe lunatic," rather than qualifying it as scholarship performed from a pro-feminist perspective. Perhaps I should not have used my own interpretations of what pro-feminist means to me as an example of the highly subjective nature that such qualifications represent. You seem to have taken my interpretation of the term and universalized it into an across the board pejorative word, when in many circles, and particularly here on WP, pro-feminist scholarship is the only real scholarship anyway. Everything else is hopelessly patriarchal and useless.--Cybermud (talk) 17:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I would prefer no qualifications besides professional qualifications- professorships and academic positions. And the latter are only needed if we are mentioning someone by name - multiple sources for single arguments or statements means, in my mind, that they can be phrased as flat facts. If you've got sources for Baskerville's claims beyond Baskerville, then please integrate them so we can get rid of the back-and-forth between single authors.

The hyperbole is to show the degree with which an interpretive viewpoint can be used to discount an opinion, particularly a profeminist viewpoint on an article about how feminism has ruined the male experience of family and children. Ultimately I don't want to debate - I don't see the needy for qualifications for non-Baskerville opinions and I'd rather we didn't use Baskerville as a sole source. If you have more sources, please insert them. I don't have the time required to do the research and reading to edit the page in a meaningful way and I'd rather not spend all this time on the talk page when it has been relatively easy to address issues by reference to the policies and guidelines. I know the P&G, it's quick to point to them. I don't know the sources, that's time consuming. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 14:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Then we absolutely do disagree. Feminist viewpoints shouldn't be presented as unbiased scholarly research anymore than studies funded by Microsoft on the "danger's of open source software" should be presented as independent, unbiased research. If qualifying and contextualizing feminist research as feminist research is viewed pejoratively it is precisely because so much research done by feminists and Women's Studies has been crap (as an aside I will be editing the article Women's Studies to exactly that effect with excellent sources in short order.) For the record, this is not just an issue of the male experience of family and children. It is also an issue of how children experience family, and not just their fathers but the whole paternal half of their family (including aunts, sisters, cousins (female) and grandmothers.) There is no content related to it here yet, but over 75% of international child abductions are committed by mother's and over 90% of them allege domestic violence post abduction. Such children lose not just their father, but their whole paternal family, ethnicity, culture and, sometimes even, language and name. I haven't gotten to it yet but I'll work on replacing Baskerville references with additional sources.--Cybermud (talk) 14:54, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Baskerville's viewpoint isn't "unbiased scholarly research" in this case. The thing is - if there are criticisms and objections, it should be possible to verify and source them. I'm sure in your example, prominent comentators have noted that the "open source is dangerous" argument is coming from Microsoft and therefore suspect. It should be up to sources to make these points, not editors. If FRM activists have noted issues about child abductions and domestic violence, then source it and include it - and note that your stats about these issues may reflect gaming of the system, or actual truth. It's not up to us to criticize, it's up to us to source criticisms. If you are replacing Baskerville references (which I don't think is a good idea necessarily - I would favour supplementing them) with reliable sources, you won't hear a peep from me since that's always been my point. I suggest you be bold and make your changes, I'll review them and comment if I feel it necessary. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:24, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Right, I take your point about sourcing criticms of sources to other sources rather than just qualifying the "interpretive framework" of the source for the reader to subjectively interpret. That does make sense and paints a more complete picture. But I can still see a problem arising where more time is spent on, for instance, criticising the research methodologies of Flood or Baskerville (the sources for the article) than is spent on the actual subject of the article, but something like that should probably be dealt with on a case by case basis. It bears noting again though that qualifying a source is not necessarily criticising it. Either way, I think we agree that this discussion is becoming too abstract and needs to be grounded in a discussion of specific edits.--Cybermud (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

In my experience (three most dangerous words in science) most criticisms can be summarized in an extremely pithy way and if readers are interested in a more extended commentary, that's why we provide the source. Shall we approach this as I think you suggest and deal with issues on a case by case basis while using sources to provide the criticisms, either direct or implied? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure Baskerville is Presidentof ACF, Baskerville is a Feminist as is Flood, where is the mention of Horn, Baserman et al try these files on for size http://westmichigandads.spaces.live.com/ a friend told me there is much there. BobV01 (talk) 04:45, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Remove NPOV tag?

Is it still necessary? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:31, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely, some real progress has been made and I commend the editors involved for that, but there are still many issues, some of them very obvious indeed. Busy at the moment, will write a list of issues later this evening unless others do so first.--Shakehandsman (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Please do so, keep items short if possible 'cause long posts are always difficult to parse (so says the hypocrite...) WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

There's some changes I'd like to make ,as well as add references, but I'm travelling at the moment and don't have access to my books, so it probably won't be till late next week at the earliest. That said, I'd be ok with taking off the tag in the meantime. I don't like tags on articles that aren't tied to well-defined editorial issues.--Cybermud (talk) 18:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Xlibris citation

The citation to Flood's self-published Xlibris book is questionable per WP:RS. If it's going to be used, it should be justified and consensus should be attained, either here or (probably better) the RS noticeboard. I support a discussion, and based on that, possibly a removal. The essential question seems to be if it meets the standard of WP:RS#SPS and WP:SPS. Flood obviously has the qualifications, but it is questionable why a noted scholar on the topic would resort to self-publication rather than peer reviewed articles or scholarly press. I would be much, much happier if the same text could be cited to a more reliable source. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 01:51, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd be happy to post it at RSN, but I am pretty clear that Flood meets the criteria as a WP:SPS given his extensive publication record on the topic. The book is bit of a weird project, I will admit, since from chapter list, it looks like a lot of big names in the field contributed chapters to the book, so one wonders why it was released by a self publisher? However the book has been cited by several other scholars, in books and in scholarly journals, which means that others have found it a valuable and reliable source. [18][19] In this case, I really don't see it as controversial, as the (positive) information is clearly supported by other references,--Slp1 (talk) 02:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Meh, RSN turns it from a single page discussion to a community consensus issue, and I know you'll make a convincing case. Xlibris may have been used because it's quicker than peer review, and Flood is a scholar publishing in his area of expertise. My issue is more one of making the expertise explicit rather than challenging it on a substantive level. I will also note that Flood's self-published work is used only once in a set of three citations (but the other two are news articles, making it a toss-up on which is more reliable. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 03:36, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

RSN comments often state that reliability is often not an all or nothing thing, and depends of the content. Mainstream news media are generally good sources, but to my mind Flood and the news articles are clearly reliable sources for the fact that mainstream FR groups have issued press releases/given interviews condemning violence and intimidation. --Slp1 (talk) 03:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Flood has and does write political diatribe under the color of his degrees, Dr. Spock wrote to the masses and is sorry he did so, Per reviewed is an entirely different standard than celebrity. Baskerville presented himself as a Father's Rights Advocate while writing as a feminist, but, NOT, as a per reviewed researcher. BobV01 (talk) 04:56, 8 November 2010 (UTC)