Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ritual child abuse

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Consensus is that this is a case of WP:SYNTH. Sandstein 10:10, 5 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ritual child abuse

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

A WP:POVFORK of Satanic ritual abuse lately worked on by WP:ADVOCATEs and WP:ACTIVISTs newly emboldened by the QAnon culture, this particular article relies on extremely poor sources (including not a few by predatory journals and WP:SELFPUB) to make a claim that there is a classification of "ritual abuse" which goes beyond the one that is generally used in the context of the moral panic around SRA that held sway in the 1980s and 1990s. The people writing this article seem to be trying to use Wikipedia to push the POV that there is a concerted phenomenon of ritualized child abuse going on in the world. This strikes me as conspiratorial thinking, especially in the context of today's political climate, and is, frankly, a distraction from actual issues related to child trafficking and child abuse. jps (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Conspiracy theories-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Psychology-related deletion discussions. jps (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The layout is odd and it might be a redundant fork of something - though I haven't investigated and satanic ritual abuse seems to fit in name only - but the nom's description doesn't match the article. It's been around for years and has hardly changed post-QAnon; it seems to mainly be about superstitious rituals in the developing world like FGM, etc. that are abusive to children. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:08, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- It was started and maintained by students in a WikiEd project... many of whom it looks like were not really being carefully checked in terms of their sourcing and article writing standards. Since then it has been used by certain questionable accounts in, for example, the way it is now featured as a possible disambig at Ritual Abuse. I am still trying to decide what to do about the account in question who seems to be taken in by some of the conspiracy theories lately swirling around this subject, but a POVFORK can happen whether the authors intended that when they authored the article or not. jps (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I don't think this article has anything to do with QAnon, at least as currently written. The article at the very least appears to be an improper synthesis of numerous unrelated practices that have not been analysed collectively as "ritual child abuse" in the scholarly literature. The article is also poorly written in a way which I don't think is recoverable, so I think WP:TNT also applies. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:15, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The nomination misrepresents the topic, which is a broad survey of the various types of child abuse with a customary or traditional nature, such as Female genital mutilation. The page quotes the UN Secretary-General’s study on violence against children, "In every region, in contradiction to human rights obligations and children’s developmental needs, violence against children is socially approved and is frequently legal and state authorized." That report was written by Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro who seems to be a respectable expert. If the UN and its experts think that there's a problem which needs reporting on then the matter seems to be quite notable and significant. Wild-eyed theories about satanism and QAnon are something else and best kept separate.

What's probably causing confusion is the word "ritual" in the page's title. Perhaps a title change might make the scope of the topic clearer. For example, here's a book on the topic. Its title suggests an alternative: Harmful Traditional Practices. Note that title changes are performed by a move, not by deletion.

Andrew🐉(talk) 21:16, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

- (Not !voting yet): My first impression is also that the article's name is not ideal. Here's the initial revision of the WikiEd page. I also see synthesis (acceptable if it was a list-style article with a well defined inclusion criteria) and we obviously have articles about most topics already, explaining how easy it can be considered a POV fork. Apparently the few sources that are not synthesis and directly related to child abuse in the context of institutions or ritual would be old or from non-notable advocacy org(s). As for the Satanic ritual abuse moral panic, while reading a whole page linking practices together reminds of it, I don't see the obvious relation. I also see no outlandish claims of democratic organized Satanic pedophilia associated with conspiracy theorists like QAnon, at least in the current article. —PaleoNeonate – 01:57, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - user:Andrew Davidson, at some point someone is going to propose a topic ban for AfD for you, arguing that someone who can't even be bothered to cite an acceptable secondary source should not be participating in these discussions. Drmies (talk) 01:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - Drmies seems mistaken or confused. The book I suggested – Harmful Traditional Practices – seems to be both a good fit for the topic and a respectable secondary source. You can read more about it here. It's from the Palgrave Macmillan imprint of Springer Nature and its authors include "Karl A. Roberts – a consultant for the World Health Organisation, and Professor and Chair of Policing and Criminal Justice at The University of Western Sydney". The work is about "harmful traditional practices: damaging and often violent acts which include female genital mutilation, forced marriage, honour killings and abuse, breast ironing, witchcraft and faith-based abuse." What's wrong with that book? Andrew🐉(talk) 02:06, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - Not to jump in on this discussion or whatever, but it seems rather torturous to claim that an article about "ritual child abuse" is actually about "harmful traditional practices". I understand that you see a similarity in the content of this page and the chapters of that book and are, I assume, in good faith arguing for a rename to preserve... something?... you think is worthwhile in the current treatment. But this does feel a little bit to me like bending over backwards to come to the conclusion you always seem to want to come to. Just a little observation from the other side, if you will. jps (talk) 16:56, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        The topic was selected for this work by a respectable professor at the University of Chicago, as noted below. The content aligns well with the book Harmful Traditional Practices and other similar works such as Interrogating Harmful Cultural Practices. Our much misunderstood policy WP:DICDEF explains that "In Wikipedia, things are grouped into articles based on what they are, not what they are called by." and so we should expect a variety of names and titles for a broad topic. Andrew🐉(talk) 14:31, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        There is absolutely no indication that the title or topic of this article was chosen by the instructor. jps (talk) 19:15, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Agree with Hemiauchenia. It's pretty much of a summary (rewrite?) of this report by a now-defunct NGO. Almost none of the other sources cited speak about the practice in question in the context of ritual abuse. So it's pretty much a big glob of WP:SYNTH material, ripe for deletion.--JBchrch (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but retitle This article did not begin as anything to do with QAnon but as a class assignment for a University of Chicago course on children's exposure to violence. This Winter 2018 class predates the rise of QAnon. I don't think it needs to be deleted because of how it might be misused. That development just means it probably should be on more editors' Watchlists and needs some serious review. Alternatively, parts of the article could be merged into Child abuse or just drop the "Ritual" part which has unfortunate associations with Satanism or less developed cultures. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:47, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A merge in the child abuse article is also a possibility I am thinking of, in the event AfD passes. —Paleo Neonate – 02:01, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some other related articles: Epidemiology of domestic violence, Religious abuse —Paleo Neonate – 02:19, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Reads like someone wanted to force some subjects with very marginal similarity into a patterned category of their own making, neatly structured into subparagraphs with identical headers ("Historical Origins", "Regional Statistics", "Health Consequences", "Policy Initiatives"). Very obviously WP:OR and not helpful at all. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:39, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Full of WP:SYNTH, no reason that a dowry should be tied FGM under this name. These "types" all have their own articles and it doesn't make sense to put them into one page just to be independently discussed. Thanks to JBchrch's find, this is just paraphrasing an NGO's report, raising copyright violation concerns, not an encyclopedic article. Reywas92^Talk 19:24, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: as per nom. There are a number of topics that don't really belong in this article, such as Circumcision, FGM, Swaddling, Dowry and Bride price and Food taboos. These topics really have nothing to do with ritual child abuse and in fact, have their own articles. --Whiteguru (talk) 01:08, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: as per nom. The article is rambling and as clear as mud.TH1980 (talk) 02:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. This is a potentially legitimate sub-subject/sub-page of ~~Satanic ritual abuse~~ and Child abuse. Of course one could say this whole page is one big synthesis, and it would be easier just to WP:TNT, but I do not think that's the optimal solution given that the content is very large and referenced. My very best wishes (talk) 01:50, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- This is emphatically not a sub-page of SRA, despite many attempts over the years to associate the two topics. SRA was a moral panic and the events claimed never happened. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:38, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my mistake. My very best wishes (talk) 23:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: as per nom. A list of POVForks that already have articles. 92.3.131.156 (talk) 22:02, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Synthesis based on sources of varying reliability — some of the journals and news reports look fine in principle, but there's also random websites and post-2013 Newsweek, not to mention reference #19, which is cited twice and is just a path to a local file on the original editor's computer. Earwig finds enough direct copying that I doubt actual care or effort went into the prose. XOR'easter (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article is an assorted of non-linked cultural practices of child-rearing, many of which are non-Western cultural practices, whose only connecting tie appears to be the author of the article sees them as problematic and tantamount to overt child abuse. Which could be the case in some matters, but very well may not be in others. And worse labeling them as "ritual child abuse" is highly misleading mislabeling. Swaddling children, for example, has no necessary connection with dowries, which in turn has no necessary connection with FGM: and all three practices are not intrinsically ritualistic. The very phrase Ritual Child Abuse conjures up specific connotations for modern readers, particularly in our present era post-Satanic ritual abuse panics and post-QAnon panics or fears over ritual child abuse (which in fairness the article makes no mention of, and to which I am not connecting it). Lastly the disparate non-connected topics listed here appear to simply have been randomly sourced and largely almost copy-pasted and lightly edited. Some of the sources are good, others problematic, but in all case the article basically looks at a number of cultural practices concerning child raising and simply labels them abusive without any apparnet consistent criteria and then, worse, labels them ritualistic - without any convincing anthropological or sociological context for doing so. KJS ml343x (talk) 05:13, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.