Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community

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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 keep. The keep arguments, particularly Joe Decker's, made a stronger case for keeping. J04n(talk page) 13:06, 28 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community[edit]

Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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The article was nominated for deletion previously with the proviso "keep and clean up." Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community. The clean-up has not happened, and several editors have posted on the talk page that the article is unencyclopedic and problematic for BLP reasons. Dianna (talk) 23:58, 21 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • NB: I've made a number of changes to the article since its nomination which address some concerns below. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:34, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - My views haven't changed since the last nomination: "Not an encyclopedic topic. This is an attempt to string together essentially unrelated independent events under a single banner, very possibly to make some sort of nationalist political point. Yech." Carrite (talk) 02:00, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, This article (and a growing number of others), has become a refuge to attack members from certain groups of people. See What Wikipedia is not. Brooklynch (talk) 04:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:51, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Judaism-related deletion discussions. -- Y not? 13:56, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in line with Catholic sex abuse cases and its many sister articles. Obviously an article of this nature needs to be carefully monitored for attack-type material, and I encourage everyone, including the delightfully-named single-purpose account Brooklynch, to do exactly that. But deletion is not the right remedy for that. This is as good a series of topically related crimes as any, and gets routinely covered by all sorts of most-respectable RS. -- Y not? 13:56, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
To quote from user:Roscelese in the last debate, "It is a fundamentally notable topic - check out the sources (NYT, for instance) which discuss individual incidents in relation to a broader trend. Crisco's statement that the collection of these incidents is synth is thus not borne out by the sources, which do link them together. (In the same way that "individual" Catholic child sex abuse cases are linked by reassignment and cover-ups, questionable admission of priests, and so on, sources point out issues that span cases: mesirah, internal/extra-judicial means of resolution...)" -- Y not? 14:04, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Catholic sex abuse cases among priests is a topic that is not specific to just an small area of New-York and also that is widely discussed. It is not comparable with the article here. Sex abuse cases in the Haredi community would be more acceptable but at the conditions that sources regarding this precise topic can be found. Pluto2012 (talk) 11:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking of bringing that up on the talk page, actually. Do you have sources on other sex abuse cases in Haredi communities elsewhere? I posted a book on the talk page that seems to include a case in Massachusetts, but I haven't been able to take a look and it's unclear if it'll prove to be relevant enough to this article to change the scope. (since, as people have said, not every incident of sexual abuse by a Haredi person is remotely within the article's scope) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:43, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Pluto, under the main Catholic article there are dozens and dozens of narrower daughter articles. Compare the nominee here against Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic diocese of Orange, or for that matter most of the articles within Category:Roman Catholic Church sex abuse cases in the United States... Fits in just fine, right? Right. -- Y not? 14:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Contrary to the nominator's claim, cleanup has addressed a number of the issues identified in the last AFD. Could it still use work? Sure. (As I said at the time, the "list of incidents" format is not useful for incidents that are not themselves especially notable. But we can look at the incidents and then talk about features common to many of them, eg. kicking accusers out of school, without naming names.) But to repeat myself, it's an obviously notable topic and the article is nowhere near poor enough to justify a WP:TNT. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "But we can look at the incidents and then talk about features common to many of them..." — Which is pretty much a definition of an original essay, yes? These are unrelated incidents. Carrite (talk) 17:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your opinion that they are unrelated is not shared by the sources. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
A thorough examination of the sources in the article shows that the only relationship between the incidents (the "list of accused"), is that they are all members of one religious group, and that they were convicted around the same time. (User "Roscelese"s recent edits on the article has not corrected this.)Brooklynch (talk) 04:26, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's clearly not true. A number of sources - including the Channel 4 that you tried to include as a palliative, as well as the NY Times source which discusses both specific incidents and broader trends, etc. - explain that there are issues broader than individual cases. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The relationship between the 7 of the 8 people posted on the article is simply that they are members of the same community. Obviously every crime in such a community will have shared factors. When a news site reports an incident of a person convicted of a crime it is normal to look at the history of that community or area. Unless you are saying that every community member who is ever convicted of any crime (against a fellow member), will be suitable to go up on the site since you will find common ground mentioned in a newspaper. (Moving the names to bottom of the article or to the Talk page (or deleting them) is a minor patch to the problem). Brooklynch (talk) 19:08, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you have to be deliberately trying to ignore sources in order to make a comment like this. The sources specifically point out commonalities in the community response; it's not simply that most of the perpetrators are Haredi or that there's some purely incidental connection, because you're right that a list of crimes by Haredis would be completely biased and unencyclopedic. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:59, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is to be noted about some recent votes, that user –Roscelese(talk) did make changes in the article - which corrected a small portion of the comments. However, the user was making previous comments look foolish by not letting new users know on this page about the new changes (until recently when the user was reminded to do so and put up the NB).Brooklynch (talk) 19:33, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment ::If someone would have created an article about “How the Black community leaders handle crime”. Or “Hispanic community leaders that were convicted on rape” or “Catholic clergy members accused of molestation” There may have been legitimacy.
However, an article that was originally created [3] (by LonelyBoy2012) and is named, for the purpose of listing people convicted crime on the sole basis that they are members of a certain religion or race, does not seem legitimate.
Almost year ago – a few users posted that the article be renamed and restructured. Not only was little done - but users (such as “Y not?”) continued to contributing to the “list of names”.
Other users on the talk page including snunɐw• and Pluto2012 agree that the article is not appropriate for Wikipedia, and should be deleted. Brooklynch (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - without addressing specific problems (which could be solved by normal editing processes), I share Carrite's concern about synthesis. Looking at the article's history, I see a lot of edit-warring and trolling, which gives me pause. Bearian (talk) 19:28, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:SUSC. We don't delete decent articles on notable topics because editors are behaving poorly; if editors are behaving that poorly, try to talk them around, or if that's not possible, have them sanctioned. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:23, 22 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:V. I'm not aware of any source - in or out of the article -- that specifically discusses the topic of "sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community." --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 02:01, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • You could start by looking at the sources in the article. Even a brief glance makes it clear that your comment here is incorrect. Did you not bother to look at the sources, or are you making comments that aren't true because getting the article deleted is more important than following policy? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      • Stop blabbering and show me the source.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • .......is there a source coming along?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 03:53, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • You're theoretically literate in English and know how to use the Internet, since you're here, so it's amazing that you don't have the basic competence to look at the reflist yourself. Seriously, a child could do this. [4][5][6] Honestly, your behavior has worn out the assumption of good faith that we commonly work with here, so I'm not really expecting that you will change a vote that's clearly based on partisanship and not on sourcing; what I do hope is that other users, and perhaps the closing admin, will see it for the empty non-policy vote that it is and not bother to waste their time with you. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:09, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually the User Brewcrewer is pretty accurate. The News sources brought are tiltled and focused on the community method of reporting crimes to secular authorities - accusing the community for having "their own justice system".(One is even titled "The Shomrim: Gotham's Crusaders""). This also leads to failure to report child molestation. (And remember WP:NOTNEWSPAPER). Someone decided to write an article and post 6 names of accused child molesters naming it "sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community" is not supported by the sources.Brooklynch (talk) 19:08, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
              • If you'll read the sources, the lack of reporting to the authorities is part of the problem, but, as the sources also point out, retribution within the community also occurs. These points are all made by the various sources which take an in-depth look at this issue, not some imagined list of trivial news articles. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:59, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete if there are proven cases of sexual abuse in the Haredi Community of Brooklyn, it is WP:OR to point out these cases out of all the sexual abuse cases in the world. Why makes the ones of the Haredi community or the ones of Brooklyn so special that they deserve a special article in wikipedia ? Do we expect to create an article for each community of the world and for each eara in the world that would have the size of Brooklyn ? That is would be nosense. By comparison, writing an article about gastric cancer in Japanese community is justified because that is something that was specifically discussed by specialists and that can be sourced (per WP:V) but there is nothing comparable with the current article. I add that we are also in the same context as WP:BLP. It is true that WP:BLP is dedicated to a given person and not a group but the philosophy of the rule is to prevent the introduction of material that could uselessly and without justification attack living people in discriminating them among others. Pluto2012 (talk) 11:22, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • Assuming there's some sort of good faith here: no, it's not OR to repeat connections that a reliable source, such as the ones in our article, has made. It's only OR if we connect unrelated incidents on our own initiative. Do you understand now? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The arguments so far as noted above lead me to support a keep. Bearian (talk) 14:02, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment
  • Why is the community of religious Jews singled out? Why do they get a special page slandering them and some of their individual members members?
If the users are interested in neutral informational biography – why haven’t they ever made a page about any other subject on the Brooklyn Haredi Community?
One User mentioned that we could protect the page. However, an article named “Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community” which is deliberately to slander a group of people, how will it remain neutral?
  • The user relates it to Catholic sex abuse cases. I have not done a through investigation into the issue and history of Catholic sexual abuse cases and why it has received so much media attention. However, a quick skim through that article showed that the focus of the article was about “media coverage”, response of “leaders” and priests and general allegations against their “leaders”. This article on the other hand is meant to slander the Haredi community as a whole.
In addition, in that specific article I have not come across a “list of names” or specific catholic community members listed as convicted. This above article on the other hand, was originally created with a list of several accused and convicted members- dominating most of the article. Now, some names still remain without any explanation of relationship.
Also, if that is the case there could have been an unlimited amount of articles with such a title. A (random) example would be a recent May 14, 2013 Los Angeles Times report about a school teacher charged with child molestation. The article then links other recent child molestation cases in that same district, and continues to report how the school district previously mishandled abuse and failed to promptly report suspected cases, as required by law.[1]
Would that justify starting an article “Child molestation in Los Angeles Unified School District”?
Another (random less related) example could be in regard a claim about a black community’s response to a gang rape case [2][3] (Assuming the story is legitimate and we post additional similiar stories) does that dictate the creation of a page “Rape cases in the black community”?
If anything wouldn’t it make more sense to add these “allegations” on to the existing Los Angeles Unified School District (or black community) page?
Of course you could make a thorough investigation and identify some differences between those two specific cases and the above article – but there are unlimited cases similar to the example that don’t and won’t get a Wikipedia page. As I mentioned in the Talk page – You could either look for answers and find reasons to blame this group of people for being different and why they deserve extra coverage, convictions and persecution. Or you could look at the general picture - This is similar to what has been happening to the Jews for the past 2000 years.
In addition, Unlike a school district, the biography of a person (or of a minority group of people) needs extra scrutiny. This is even more important when slandering a group of people with a well-documented history of being persecuted and singled out.
  • After the article was again put up for this current deletion review, user:Roscelese has made several changes to make the article look more legitimate. (The user has not discussed on this page that the article is now different from when it was put up for deletion). Among the changes (-as of today-) was adding an opening statement at the beginning of the article (attempting) to set a tone that the article is only attacking the community for how they handle teachers and leaders. The actual article and the sources brought do not support that, rather it attempts to slander the community in relationship with all members. The user also moved the list of names of convicted members from the community to the bottom of the page, but they remain there along with the other 5 names in the history of the article (begging for more). The user also added a comparison in the article to the Catholic sex abuse cases using a source from an unverifiable statement made by an activist - the user stated it as a fact, and further altered the wording to make it sound as if this is usual procedure.
[More troubling about the above statement alteration, is that even this long standing legitimate user-user:Roscelese, who has just advocated about stopping and blocking poor behaving editors, went ahead and imposed the unverifiable allegation (either against the community or against their unidentified “board of Rabbis”) that teachers in the community schools that are found molesting children – are usually assigned to work at another school!! These are his words: "...rabbis, teachers, and youth leaders found to be abusing children are usually reassigned to another yeshiva, perhaps after seeing a board of rabbis.[citation]"]
  • As I see users insisting that some of the information in the article is useful and appropriate – even if we were to take that stance, the allegations could be addressed in an existing Haredi Judaism or Orthodox Judaism article, under a controversy section. This would leave a possibility for a neutral point of view on the issue. This is especially true because the slander and allegations are against that specific community as a whole (and not only it’s leaders). Brooklynch (talk) 16:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, that was a very long comment, but what I'm getting out of it is that you don't care what sources say or cover if it's unfavorable to the community. Like the bit about molesters getting reassigned - that's right in the Voice (in both the author's words and a quote from a rabbi), but you're pretending it's some unsourced smear. The fact that there are long in-depth investigative articles on this topic (not newsflashes) that you don't care about because they're "slander," even though they're perfectly in compliance with WP:RS. Your loyalty is admirable, but right now it's conflicting with Wikipedia policy.
I have some comments on your suggestions for other articles (however sarcastically you meant them), but I'll leave them on your talk page since they're not really related to this conversation. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:10, 24 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • (It seems that the above comment was not clarified): Among the wikipedia violations stated above are the following:
WP:NOTADVOCATE Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, religious, national, sports-related, or otherwise.
WP:NOTSCANDAL Scandal mongering, promoting things "…Articles and content about living people are required to meet an especially high standard … should not be written purely to attack the reputation of another person.
WP:POVFORK Because there already exists articles on these people - creating such an article - creates a point of view (POV) fork which is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive
WP:ATTACK An attack page is a page, in any namespace, that exists primarily to disparage or threaten its subject. Under the criteria for speedy deletion, these pages are subject to speedy deletion. … and warn the user who created it .. using the. Attack pages may also be blanked as courtesy. (Some PUBLIC FIGURES (such as priests - especially deceased) are exempt from part of this rule).
(The following issues were partially resoved: ::WP:NOTNEWSPAPER Wikipedia is not a newspaper. WP:BLPCRIME. According to Wikipedia, a person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and convicted by a court of law – The creator of the article posted non convicted people, editors kept on putting it back - and they remain in the history of the article). Brooklynch (talk) 15:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Would you also describe Catholic sex abuse cases or Islamic terrorism as violations of NOTADVOCATE, NOTSCANDAL, POVFORK, and ATTACK? After all, those also cover unfavorable information about particular groups. Of course not - reliable sources report them neutrally, and we follow the lead of reliable sources in reporting them neutrally. Following the policies you list does not entail scrubbing the encyclopedia of all unfavorable information; containing only favorable information destroys Wikipedia's credibility as an encyclopedia. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:59, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I ask again: Explain why this defaming allegation against this community of living people does not violate each of these rules WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:NOTSCANDAL, WP:POVFORK, WP:ATTACK and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER?
Because it's not advocating anything, written using high-quality sources without attacking anyone, not a fork (let alone a POV fork) of any other article, doesn't exist primarily to disparage anyone (or at all to disparage anyone, "primarily" aside), and isn't written in a blow-by-blow newsy style about events with no lasting significance. Answer my question. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:13, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously anyone who defames a minority community will always say "I'm not attacking them". If an article "Sexual abuse cases in Brooklyn's Haredi community" and an opening sentence "The response of Brooklyn's Haredi Jewish community...has drawn scrutiny" (let alone the rest of the article and its founding[7]) - does not violate WP:NOTADVOCATE, WP:NOTSCANDAL and WP:ATTACK - what kind of article DOES?
There exists articles about Haredi Judaism - insisting that these allegations against a community receive a new article, isn't that precisely a WP:POVFORK?Brooklynch (talk) 15:42, 27 May 2013 (UTC).[reply]
In regards to your comparisons: Wikipedia clearly states that "most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion", this even applies to existing articles never mind a NEW article. Not every time a person/company/thing/public figure etc. is defamed in the news do they get a special encyclopedia slanderous article, in fact, that almost never happens.
I already explained in my comment, that I have not made an investigation why a few unfavorable information about public figures or mainstream religions were not included in their pages. However, I do want to point out that in regards to living persons, especialy minority groups, "the burden of proof is on those who wish to retain, restore, or undelete the disputed material". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brooklynch (talk • contribs) 04:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"what kind of article DOES?" ...uh, an article that doesn't rely completely on investigative journalism from reliable sources, borrowing its analysis of community response from them? One that used poor sources, made inferences that weren't directly present in the sources, generalized the crimes of individuals to criminality of the sect, etc.? Is this even a real question?
Re POVFORK - would you then recommend merging all this information to the article on Haredi Judaism? That seems like a poor decision, and the sort of thing that would be suggested by a person who wanted the main article on this sect to be overwhelmed with undue negative information.
Well then it's a lucky thing, isn't it, that this isn't an article of every news story of a Haredi abusing a child, but rather neutrally uses analysis of trends in the long term?
The burden of proof is amply satisfied by the sources presented. I'm not sure you understand BLP and BLPGROUP; it means the sources have to be very high-quality (and they are), not that they're subject to veto by any individual who feels that Wikipedia's coverage of their group isn't wholly flattering.
Answer my question. Do articles on Catholic sex abuse or Islamic terrorism violate your laundry list of policies? Is it against policy to contain well-sourced negative information, when that information may be applicable (per sources) across a group and when it entails individual events, even if the events are not named in the main article? If not, why are Haredis an exception to the rule that everyone else follows?
19:24, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep Obviously passes GNG. Not liking something is not grounds for deletion. Darkness Shines (talk) 07:06, 26 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I have not gone back and looked at older versions of the article, I'm evaluating id 556822444. With regard to claims of synthesis, when I look through the references, I see articles that talk about them as a group. The articles themselves appear to be from generally reliable sources. Not a lot of WP:GEOSCOPE, but some (e.g., [8]). And while some of the coverage within the article so far has a short time window, sources such as [9] reliably tie a pattern of issues with sexual abuse in the community with the 2009 Kol Tzedek program, three years earlier and again, which shows this is a coherent topic, with effects that go far beyond a single news cycle, and which have a WP:LASTING effect. Certainly there are more notable patterns of events than this, but this seems above the bar. --j⚛e deckertalk 23:27, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Joe Decker's sound and accurate analysis. It passes the bar. Cavarrone (talk) 05:38, 28 May 2013 (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.
  1. ^ http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-former-lausd-teacher-trial-20130514,0,1248714.story
  2. ^ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/03/a_lot_of_people_in_cleveland_t.html
  3. ^ http://www.khou.com/news/local/Cleveland-remains-divided-over-assault-case.html
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