Talk:Female infanticide in India/Archive 1

Archive 1

June 1986

User:OccultZone, hi. this edit was switched back to 1985 but the source here gives "June 1986" for the India Today Born to Die cover story. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:01, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: Article was DYK, and today I saw that you changed the year. Thanks for keeping it calm, I have self-reverted. OccultZone (Talk) 02:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, there seem to be three sources in Google Books citing this article. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Revert, why

Please stop removing the image, it is for illustrative purposes and is fine. Also the change of dates (unexplained) and the use of primary sources. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:12, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Per WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE "Images are primarily meant to inform readers by providing visual information. Consequently, images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, even if they are not provably authentic images." The image stays. Darkness Shines (talk) 16:40, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Neutrality issues

This article is not neutral. It summarizes sources that highlight and present "high estimates" of female infanticide, but does not summarize sources that provide alternate "lower estimates" or question the high estimates. A neutral presentation would present all sides, high and low. There is plenty of reliable scholarly sources for the different sides. SamanthaBooth (talk) 17:35, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

And, bollocks. Thanks for coming. Darkness Shines (talk) 17:41, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

You reverted my edit, asking for a source! I already provided it: Christophe Z Guilmoto, Sex imbalances at birth Trends, consequences and policy implications, United Nations Population Fund, Hanoi (October 2011), ISBN 978-974-680-338-0, p. 49. Why did you remove it here? SamanthaBooth (talk) 17:47, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

For further explanation of neutrality issues in this article, see here. SamanthaBooth (talk) 20:22, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

This article is highly biased and racist. I shall be editing it suitably.ShoeMacneil (talk) 05:12, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

I also see that this is a GA nominee. This article sucks and is undeserving of GA status. ShoeMacneil (talk) 05:14, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

How is the article racist? And it is most certainly deserving of GA status. Darkness Shines (talk) 08:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

wierd question for a new bie seems profound understanding of what is a GA status for guy who joined today! , hopefully is not a sock of somebody Shrikanthv (talk) 11:25, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

This is outrageous and WP:UNCIVIL. Perhaps you should put your suggestions to User:Darkness_Shines, a self admitted WP:SOCK, who is indefinitely TOPIC BANNED from editing India related articles, broadly construed. Needless to say I am reverting all of your unconstructive edits. ShoeMacneil (talk) 04:46, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Image disputed

19th-century illustration of "infanticide on the Ganges"

I have blocked the above new account ShoeMacneil (talk · contribs) as an aggressive edit-warring-only account who was evidently here in pursuance of some preexisting grudge, and therefore almost certainly a sock of some sorts. However, I have found two issues in the material he tried to remove that really do present a problem. One is the material I removed again here [1], because the wording was unduly presenting what is clearly an interpretative authorial opinion expressed by the source as if it was objective encyclopedic fact. The other is the image File:Infanticide-ganges.jpg. The problem here is that we don't have a reliable source saying what exactly this image was meant to show, while the available evidence suggests it is actually meant to show a very specific practice of infanticide that was not gender-specific against girls, distinct from the larger issue of female infanticide, and as such isn't illustrating what this section is about.

From the source website [2], we unfortunately don't know where exactly the image is ultimately from, but we know it's from a series of 19th-century illustrations about the life of William Carey, a Christian missionary around 1800. Carey was indeed known to have been involved with a purported pattern of infanticide on the Ganges, which he tried to eradicate [3][4]. However, what Carey described [5] was not the type of socially motivated female infanticide that this article is about, but a religiously motivated pattern of human sacrifice, where parents killed children – of either sex – in fulfillment of a religious vow [6][7]. While this purported practice has sometimes been discussed in the same context as that of specifically female infanticide, careful discussions – both contemporary and modern – clearly distinguish the two [8].

So, unless a source is brought forward that says the author of the illustration meant to specifically illustrate the killing of girls, we must assume the image isn't showing what this paragraph is about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:56, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE "Images are primarily meant to inform readers by providing visual information. Consequently, images should look like what they are meant to illustrate, even if they are not provably authentic images." And stop following me around. Darkness Shines (talk) 08:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

But it doesn't look like what it's meant to illustrate here. The image is meant to illustrate a different pattern of infanticide, performed as a ritual, publicly and out in the open; female infanticide of the type discussed in this article, according to the sources, was and is practiced secretly and at home. You can't seriously mean you read that guideline as allowing you to take an illustration of one historical practice and pretend it's an illustration of a different one? That just beggars belief.
Also, stop your disruptive tactics of reacting to everything you don't like with immediate blanket reverts, not even paying attention on what you're reverting. You reverted (a) three distinct changes by two different people, at least one of which was completely uncontroversial, (b) without even waiting for the explanation on talk I had said I'd give, and (c) without any explanation of the other parts of your reverts. This is exactly your old pattern of aggressive disruptive editing; if you continue like this I see you re-banned quite soon. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:05, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The image shows infanticide, there is nothing wrong with it, and you need to stop hounding me Darkness Shines (talk) 12:23, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

I've filed a request at WP:DRN about this issue, on the off-chance that DS might still be willing to engage in constructive discussion (even though his latest reverts indicate the opposite.) Since DS is still insisting on using disruptive blanket reverts of three different passages at once, and hasn't provided any reason or justification why he keeps reverting the other two bits involved, I will reinstate those two one more time, to give him a chance to explain why he objects to them. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:25, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: FWIW, for similar reasons to yours, I had removed that image in September 2014. The image is not "directly related" to "female" infanticide, as required by WP:IMAGE RELEVANCE.

If consensus emerges to keep the image, the caption needs to be improved. The image was sketched by an unknown colleague of the early 19th century missionary William Carey. Carey and colleagues have been a staple of scholars in their study of religious support for colonial rule and British abuses in Bengal (part of which is now in India and rest is Bangladesh). They have been questioned for their historical fabrications and distorted presentations to support their missionary zeal. For instance, see Silvia Nagy at p. 62 in ISBN 978-073-91-31763, Michael Franklin at pp. 40-41 in ISBN 978-041-56-51530, Brian Pennington at pp. 76-79 in ISBN 978-019-53-26000, Satish Mittal at p. 180 in ISBN 978-817-53-30184, and V Rao at pp. 17-18 in ISBN 978-8131302736.

Either delete the image, or at least revise its caption to "A 19th-century illustration of infanticide on the Ganges by a colleague of Christian missionary William Carey.[cite 1] The sex of the child is unknown.[cite 2] The missionaries have been praised for highlighting the practice as well as accused of distorted fabrications.[cite 3, 4]" SamanthaBooth (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would work. Do we actually have that "cite 2" that would explicitly say, about this specific image, that the sex is unknown? Or an actual cite that links this specific image to the topic of purported ideological bias in Carey? So far, my impression is that we simply have nothing directly about this image, which means we shouldn't be using it at all, rather than using it and contextualizing it somehow. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:50, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Why do you keep edit warring OR into this article?

Darkness Shines (talk) 11:38, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Are you seriously implying this is some kind of constructive contribution to discussion? How would removing an image amount to inserting OR? There are three bits of text you have been revert-warring over; so far you have failed to even specify which of them you are talking about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:49, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Remove OR So why do you keep edit warring it back in? Darkness Shines (talk) 12:20, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I didn't even see you had removed it earlier. It was reinstated by Shrikanthv [9], when both he and I were trying to revert back to before the edit war with that sock account, so I assumed it was just some uncontroversial bit that happened to have got lost in the reverting by accident. See, that's the problem when you use all those blanket reverts without explanation. I had deliberately restored these things in three separate edits, to make it easier for you to challenge or revert them separately. But seriously, why would you object to it anyway? Your own text further down (the one you've been edit-warring in) says there are "conflicted statistics", so what's the issue with saying the statistics "vary widely by source"? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:33, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I will be putting he image back, see The Encyclopedia of Child Abuse p148 Darkness Shines (talk) 20:19, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

What does that book say? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:33, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Says flinging babies into the Ganges was commonplace Darkness Shines (talk) 20:49, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Which means you still didn't get what the issue is. Read again. Will remove the image again soon. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:51, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Another sourcing issue

I have tagged as "failed verification" the following sentence: "A letter from a magistrate who was stationed in the North West of India during this period spoke of the fact that for several hundred years[not in citation given] no daughter had ever been raised in the strongholds of the Rajahs of Mynpoorie." This is ostensibly sourced to footnote 14, Scott (2013: 6). However, the sentence is prima facie implausible: how could a British magistrate in the early 19th century have possibly known what had been going on "for several hundred years" before his time? (And even if he did claim this as a "fact", how could we present it as such in Wikipedia's voice?) Actually, the cited source (if that's the one meant to support this sentence) supports no such thing; it merely says that somebody reported the girls were being killed at that time. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not presented as fact, it is attributed to the guy who wrote the letter. Darkness Shines (talk) 12:21, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

No, your wording, "spoke of the fact that", grammatically entails that it is a fact, presented as such in your own voice. That's what "the" means. If you want to avoid that entailment, you need to reword it. (And of course you still need to provide a proper source for it, because wherever it's from, it's not in the one given in the following footnote). Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:29, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

DRN Thread on Image

A thread has been opened at the dispute resolution noticeboard about the appropriateness of the inclusion of an image in the article. Would the parties be willing to have a Request for Comments decide the appropriateness of the image? Since either the image will be in the article or it won't, there doesn't seem to be a lot to mediate. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Since no further discussion has been forthcoming from DS beyond a mere restatement of his assertion without addressing any of the concerns [10], and everybody else here on talk appears to be in agreement that it's inappropriate, I don't really see the need for any further dispute resolution myself. The only question is whether DS, in the absence of rational arguments he can bring forward, will still continue to revert-war it back in, which at this point is really just a conduct, not a content issue. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:32, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I saw this brought up at DRN and I agree that it is not appropriate for this article. Gandydancer (talk) 16:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I have closed the DRN thread. As FPAS notes, continuing to edit-war the image in becomes tendentious editing, and this article is subject to ArbCom discretionary sanctions not under one ruling, but two, because it is not only about India and so subject to WP:ARBIPA but is also about a gender-related controversy and so subject to WP:ARBGG. The next productive step would either be acceptance of a consensus against the use of the image, or an RFC on whether the image is appropriate. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:24, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: do you have a mop? DS reappears on this page after 23 days, makes a self-declaration that he will be inserting the image yet again, and does it in next two mins. This is a perfect case of tendentious editing. --AmritasyaPutra^T 08:24, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't have the mop. FPAS has the mop, but may be involved. I suggest taking this to Arbitration Enforcement under WP:ARBIPA. User:Darkness Shines - The inclusion of that image is against consensus. We don't know the gender of the baby in the image; it illustrates child-sacrifice, not female infanticide. You were recently indefinitely blocked, and were unblocked. You are dangerously close to having the indef block converted to a site ban. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:09, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Good job really, as you're obviously an idiot. Darkness Shines (talk) 22:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Definition

I have completely removed that section because most of it was discussing about the Female infanticide, and not much about its presence in India. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 16:12, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

I wasn't very happy with that addition either, mainly because of the over-emphasis on a very narrow definition that distinguishes infanticide from more specific situations of killing ("Scholars do not consider infanticide same as foeticide, neonaticide and filicide" etc.) While some authors may indeed make such distinctions, it is quite clear that most of the relevant literature that speaks of "infanticide" in the present context is using it in a wider sense which includes such cases as new-borns during their first day ("neonaticide"). In what sense abortion ("foeticide") is related and can be subsumed under the same heading is a difficult matter and would need some careful phrasing. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:31, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Correct, and apart from all that, I had also checked how these sources were formatted, "xxx, p.xx, year" is not forbidden, but we are working on a GA, thus it should be clear and each of them should link to the source especially when it is available online. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 17:00, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

(ec) However, that, in fairness to Samantha, should never be seen as grounds for reverting an otherwise justifiable edit, especially when inserted by a less experienced editor. References can be fixed later; what matters first is to get the content right. (Plus, it's not yet a GA anyway, and in fact quite far from it, the way I see it.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:06, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I meant to say that we are working on GA nomination. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 03:52, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

For convenience I am quoting the section and cites in question,

Definition

Infanticide is a type of homicide, where the victim is an infant less than a year old.[1][2] This is the most accepted definition of the globally observed phenomena of infanticide.[3][4][5] It is also the legal definition of infanticide in India.[6] Female infanticide is the infanticide where the gender of the victim is female.

Scholars do not consider infanticide same as foeticide, neonaticide and filicide.[7][8] Typically, foeticide is defined as the termination of pregnancy before birth (also called abortion), neonaticide is defined as the killing of a newborn within 24 hours of birth, and filicide as the homicide by a victim's parent or parental figures when the victim is between 1 to 18 years of age.[9]

@OccultZone: The article needs a definition section, because currently the article is causing confusion between foeticide with infanticide. If you review the cites above, you will note that the mainstream scholarly view does not consider fetus as infant, and foeticide as infanticide. How can you discuss "presence in India", without stating the "presence of what in India?" The article needs a summary of various definitions as well as the Indian Penal Code definition of "infanticide", "female infanticide" and "female infanticide in India". Please explain why not? On formatting issues, I am sure I can learn from your leads, if we reach a consensus.

@Future Perfect at Sunrise: The definition section needs to be expanded, beyond the above. Neonaticide is indeed included in infanticide by some scholars, and more importantly by the Indian Penal Code. I was going to add more text along the lines of what you are saying. But, the bigger question is whether the article needs a discussion of the definition and terminology at all? SamanthaBooth (talk) 17:03, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

@SamanthaBooth: It needs definition? How about you start with any other section like "Prevalence". Upon reading so many sources for nearly 2 years on en.wiki alone, I am sure that none of them have treated the female infanticide in India as different to any other infanticide. OccultZone (Talk • Contributions • Log) 05:09, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I added a trimmed version with sources. If there are other definitions in use, please add them with sources. SamanthaBooth (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The paragraph which begins with the following does not belong here:

"there are instances where male children are targeted, one historic example of which was in Japan."

- it's about males, not females. - it's about Japan, not India. - it's about history, not Definition. Johnywhy (talk) 15:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)