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Continuing protest

This is an article that blurs the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia, under the euphemistic banner 'Greek love'. It currently sports pictures of a boy being sodomized and a child being abducted. Congratulations on a job well done! I can accept such an article if it has sound foundations in scholarly literature but it doesn't. It's a murky area, creatively researched by editors here who have pulled together the works of authors in different fields, none of whom have ever collaborated on this scale. Blanshard's book (or one chapter of it), published in October last year, is the only source that takes a wide-brush approach to this subject and it is used here simply as a fig leaf to cover original research. The only content unique to this article is the term 'Greek love' but there seems to be no source that discusses its history and its use across all these different contexts (Blanshard isn't really interested in the term at all). Many of the sources here don't even employ the term. The result is an article that covers pederasty yet again without contributing anything that clearly belongs here and not somewhere else, and which can continue growing at the whim of future editors happy to give some kind of Greek flavour to their abiding interest in homosexuality/pedophilia. There are other better established articles for this material. Anyway, I've fought long and hard against this controversial and unnecessary article and I'll continue to protest against it, if only for my own peace of mind, no matter what the interested parties think. I have changed my user name several times during my opposition to this article but I haven't wavered in my opposition to it. I have been User:Lucretius User:Esseinrebusinanetamenfatearenecessest, User:Amphitryoniades, User:McZeus and now McCronion (talk) 01:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The article has a good many problems but it is far better than it was some months ago. I believe you are still trying to battle against your perceptions and misinterpretations of pederasty and pederast. You are far too detached from the subject and are reacting and not even seeing past you own comfort level. The subject is real even if the article breaks a few wiki rules and seems to give undue weight in the lead to one author it doesn't come across as simply. I know others have spent many countless hours explaining that wiki doesn't censor and that the images, while certainly pushed here to be displayed on what some might call a rather frail reasoning, others might see as being worth the lesser quality of the article by wiki standards.--Amadscientist (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I've now replaced the two images I objected to. There is no necessary reason to show a child being abducted for sexual purposes, or a juvenile being sodomised, when there are so many less objectionable images to choose from. It is appropriate that WP should show discretion in its choice of images. The article is still a loose amalgam of researches from different scholars working in different fields, it still has issues of original research, and thus the confronting images were downright provocative. They belong in other articles but not here. There is an article on the Warren Cup and links are enough - why reproduce the same pictures and the same information? Of course all the sections in this article are basically recycled from other articles but at least the other sections don't offer up sexualised images of children. McCronion (talk) 02:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Why not? The images are from real works of art, and I'm sorry that you feel offended by them, but that's no reason to exclude them. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your sympathy but put it this way: if the article had issues about content forking and original research, but we changed the content so that it was offensive to those who currently support it, it would have been deleted years ago. You're happy with the content, you are happy to overlook those issues and you really don't give a damn about the offense it causes people like me, so long as you think I am powerless to stop you. The article is basically a lane where a gang feels strong enough to dominate in defiance of WP guidelines and rules. That is one more reason why I feel strongly opposed to it. McCronion (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Put it this way. You don't have to read the article if you're offended by it. If the article had issues about content forking and original research, but we changed the content so that it was offensive to me, but did not violate policy, I wouldn't read it and wouldn't lose sleep over it. There are a lot of things that offend me, and I find it best to avoid those things. Can you point to a policy that suggests we should not include the images? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Others read the article and it is not about a value-neutral topic like igneous rocks. It's about pederasty, where the distiction between homosexuality and pedophilia gets blurred. The article has a history of promotional edits. Articles like this damage WP's credibility. So long as I edit WP, and so long as this article is on a large scope that is far in advance of anything found in scholarly literature, I'll be opposed to it. McCronion (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Promotional edits? Can you clarify that? Again, I ask, can you point to a policy that suggests we should not include the images? You're entitled to your personal opinion, but personal opinions are neither policies nor guidelines. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

essay tag

Could you bullet-list some characteristics of this article that would make it a "personal essay"? I wrote a great deal of it, and I don't see it as employing any methodologies or stylistic effects that I don't use in every other article on a conceptual topic, and sure doesn't express any of my personal views on anything: virtually every sentence has a citation. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll give you one, just to start with. Where is the term 'Greek love' employed in any discussion on the Warren Cup? I'd like to see a quote thankyou. I might add that the article on the Warren Cup is hardly more than a stub and the info you are putting here belongs there instead. McCronion (talk) 23:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Here you go: "On the Warren Cup, however, I would suggest that this ideal concept of Greek love is transformed into a master-slave relationship that was in keeping with the social and sexual norms of Roman lovemaking" (The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in Silver: John Pollini: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 21-52) Looks like a good source for the article, we can expand that section a bit. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. By all means use the quote! However the pictures are already displayed atThe Warren Cup and almost all the material that is cited here belongs there. Use a link. That is what links are for. McCronion (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

There's no reason not to have the images here, that's the nice thing about bits--doesn't cost anything to reproduce them. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The image showing the abduction of Ganymede is already at Pederasty in ancient Greece and there is no need to reproduce it here, especially in light of the concerns I have already expressed. The Warren Cup images also don't need to be reproduced here when you can link instead. The article already links there so why reproduce the pictures? There is a suspicion that some people enjoy the spectacle of a boy being sodomised and you can allay that suspicion by not allowing the image to proliferate. McCronion (talk) 00:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

You need to point to a policy or guideline supporting your position. These are works of art, not porn. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is from Misplaced Pages: offensive material:

A cornerstone of Misplaced Pages policy is that the project is not censored. Misplaced Pages editors do not remove material solely because it may be offensive, unpleasant, or unsuitable for some readers. However, it is equally true that Misplaced Pages does not seek to include as much offensive material as possible merely because offensive material is permitted in appropriate contexts.

Especially with respect to images, editors frequently need to choose between alternatives with varying degrees of potential offensiveness. When multiple options are equally effective at portraying a concept, Misplaced Pages does not retain the most offensive options merely to "show off" its ability to include possibly offensive materials. Images containing offensive material that is extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous are not protected in the name of opposing censorship.

The duplication of material with a pedophile association is gratuitous and there are better choices. McCronion (talk) 00:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

In other words, you can't produce a bullet-list of personal-essay characteristics that this article exhibits; in fact, it's the kind of expository writing one finds throughout WP articles on literature, the arts, and philosophical concepts. A "personal" essay uses, for instance, first- and second-person pronouns (hence "personal"), and it expresses the opinions of the writer. I can assure you, as I have assured you before, that I found it personally disgusting and upsetting to write about the puer delicatus. (I'm appalled by the marriage of 12- and 14-year-old girls, too, since I'm the mother of one; and where's the indignation for the many paintings of women stripped naked in the presence of clothed men as a preliminary to rape? This is a frequent trope of mythological painting, and I don't go around deleting them all if they are apt illustrations of the myth and its continuance in the classical tradition.) As for the Warren Cup, you assert that this artifact promotes "pedophilia" and that it is merely offensive, not illustrative. Unless you can produce RS which characterize this cup as pedophilic, and which dismiss its aesthetic and cultural value, that's only your personal opinion. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The essay tag was put there by Amadscientist, not by me, but I can see what he is driving at. The article is an original synthesis of material: there is nothing like this in its ambitious scope in the scholarly literature. It should be titled The history of the reception of ancient Greek pederasty as understood by some anonymous contributors to Misplaced Pages using multiple sources that are in fact about other subjects. Look at the cited sources and their titles. You are certainly engaging in original research. You might think highly of yourself as a scholar but if you are editing WP you are a mug punter same as the rest of us and quite frankly I don't trust WP editors to mediate something as complex and value-loaded as the reception of pederasty unless they are following in the footsteps of published scholars. The image of a boy being sodomised is offensive to me as the citizen of a country where pedophilia is a crime (like your own country in fact). Given the right context, the cup is acceptable and even admirable as a piece of craftsmanship. A museum is the right context. An article published by a scholar is the right context. A WP article on The Warren Cup is the right context if it is scrupulously written. Anal intercourse is not the right context. 'Random' images generated by LGBT is the wrong context when the sodomising of the boy becomes the centre piece (which was the motivation behind my post on the LGBT talk page). And this article is not the right context in view of its history, its present state and its likely future. I have to laugh when Peter Cohen reverts my edits and accuses me of bulldozing (article History page). One individual who has never engaged in an edit war versus a group of people that has bulldozed through WP rules prohibiting original research and content forking so as to set up an article like this! It's like Frankenstein's monster - bits and pieces of other articles warmed up under a new name. McCronion (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

(Good to see you back, McCronion.) I can't really tell if this thread has to do with the article's being an essay or with the Warren Cup, but nothing about the cup's current presentation on this page is "extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous", given the fact that there is sustained commentary upon its contents. It is a major piece in the first chapter of the narrative of Greek Love, and an objection that it is "extraneaous etc." seems more an objection to the article per se than to the inclusion of the cup itself. I understand that McCronion is opposed to the article altogether, which is his (I assume from the patronymic) position to take, but I have to disagree with his view of the cup. On the article's topic, a new Cambridge Companion is under contract that will surely have a couple chapters that give a better picture of "Greek Love", but anything that Cynwolfe can do to improve the material after Rome in the meantime certainly won't be the work of a "mug punter". The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 00:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Cardiffchestnut. I wouldn't object to this article if it had appropriate sources. The reception of Greek pederasty is a topic best suited to the end section of Pederasty in ancient Greece and it could then link to other articles. The available sources would justify that approach. There are no sources to justify what we have here, an entire article on the history of the reception of Greek pederasty, with content forks throughout. This ambitious article is purely a Misplaced Pages invention. I don't know Cynwolfe. She is just an electronic signal at this end. Regarding the image of the boy being sodomized - the image is presented here with a link to The Warren Cup, where the boy is sodomized for us a second time. What's the point of reproducing that image here? Are readers too lazy to click on the link? Its presence here is unnecessary and therefore gratuitous. McCronion (talk) 08:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Please list the sources used in this article that (A) don't meet RS guidelines, and (B) don't discuss the historical use of a Greek homoerotic model for intellectual or aesthetic purposes with reference to the term "Greek love" (you will find examples of B in the Greek background section, since nearly all scholars use the term "Greek love" to refer only to the trope or discourse, and not to the actual practices or attitudes of the Greeks themselves). The sources do not treat "Greek love" in homoerotic discourse as simply or only as code for pederasty, as this article indicates, but this does seem to be the preoccupation you bring to the article the aspect you choose to focus on to the exclusion of desexualized friendship and "homosocial" ideals in the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras. Readers who reference this article in the form of a PDF or print format wouldn't be able to see the images if they were only linked to, and online shouldn't need to toggle back and forth between articles. The Archaic Zeus terra cotta doesn't depict an explicit sex act; as you surely know, male nudity is pervasive in Greek art. The image of Ganymede and the eagle substituted earlier doesn't illustrate the article, which isn't about the theriomorphic aspect of the myth, but rather the Zeus-Ganymede myth as taken as a model for human relationships. The "Roman" side of the Warren Cup makes me uncomfortable, but compared to much Roman "pornography", which often focuses on the penis penetrating quite explicitly (or sex scenes on Greek vase painting, for that matter), the artist has chosen not to make this scene as graphic as he could've. The act of penetration is left to inference, not presented to the gaze, as it often is in Roman wall painting and other media. The tonality of that "for us" indicates that you should probably stop looking so long and hard at the image. As I'm sure you're aware, your witticism in your last edit summary could be taken as lacking civility. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:01, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Several things. 1) re the implication that I'm a closet pedophile/pederast - speaking against a practice always leaves the speaker open to that kind of accusation. I'm self taught, so I am not insensitive to how things appear to the general community, the way scholars can become insensitive. So I'm your insurance against blinkered insensitivity. 2)the eagle, as you know, represents Zeus and it is absurd to say that it is irrelevant to Greek Love—there you give us a glimpse of your arrogant presumption that you are qualified to make judgments on this topic, synthesizing ideas as you please. That brings me to the next point. 3) There is no scholarly literature that attempts such an ambitious synthesis of 'Greek love' material as we find in this article. The sources are overwhelmingly narrower in their scope. You expect me to accept you as an authority on this subject, able to bring together all this disparate material? I don't know you that well. But I reason that a top rate scholar doesn't have much time for WP. Your efforts here come under the policy against original research:

Misplaced Pages articles must not contain original research. The term "original research" (OR) is used on Misplaced Pages to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material as presented.

Your sources support many different arguments and just by bringing them all together as if they all support a single argument you are advancing a thesis. Yes, some amount of synthesis goes on with any article, but it must be of the kind that is typical within the literature. Here there is an absent of literature that guides us to that judgment. You are making all the decisions as our resident if anonymous expert. The closest source you have to an article this size is one chapter of Blanshard's book published last year and yet you are expert enough to advance even beyond his treatment. That's original research. And 4) readers are more than capable of going from one article to another by clicking on links. Many of them, like me, would rather not see the same images a second time. McCronion (talk) 23:38, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstood: I meant that the subject is upsetting to you, and you clearly care very much (perhaps too much to be neutral) about the threat of pedophilia. I sincerely apologize if you understood it the other way; I thought our previous interactions would have assured you of this, but I struck my wording because I thought that others could read it in the wrong way. I was trying to say, as I hope I will now say more clearly, that you're so emotionally involved with this subject that maybe you should stop dwelling on the image and an imagined reality behind it that seems to cause you real pain. Again, I apologize for not making that clear.

As for matters that pertain to the article, again I can only point out that when asked you are unable to list the sources that don't meet the standards for RS or that fail to deal with this topic. No one who's read the article by Ramsey MacMullen, the relevant portions of Eva Cantarella's Bisexuality in the Ancient World, or the "Greek love" section in Caroline Vout's book, not to mention Crompton's Byron and Greek Love (a very widely cited book) and numerous other sources such as Williams, could find anything even slightly original stated here. You are welcome to point out synthesis: please list sentences that draw or imply conclusions that are not explicit in the sources cited. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Again a number of issues need to be considered. 1) Misplaced Pages: Identifying reliable sources states that reliability is established by context. What is the context for the ambitious scope of this article? Blanshard's book seems to be the context you are working within but you go far beyond him. I believe his approach is epoch-centred. Your approach provides additional epochs, personalities and issues (thereby coincidentally generating many content forks). If Blanshard had wanted to include some of the issues, epochs and personalities you raise here, he might have chosen a different context, based on a selection of themes and significant debates, where your choice of sources is irrelevant and unreliable. You are not supposed to be in advance of the scholarship. You are supposed to be following it. Thus I would list all your sources as unreliable since they are supporting original research. 2) Consider the pretexts you and Nujin have given me for retaining the pedophilia-like images: I look too long and hard at the images (the recent history of this and similar articles on pederasty actually shows that I am not alone in my concerns about gratuitous images and content); using the link to The Warren Cup would compromise the reading experience (links actually enhance the reading experience and that's why there are so many of them in WP articles); Zeus must appear as a man in a 'Greek love' context (he is regularly represented as an eagle in relation to Ganymede). Why are you taking refuge in such flimsy pretexts? 3) My rudeness has a purpose and I don't object to yours in the circumstances. One of the banes of WP for editors like me is the Facebook style of 'friendships' that develop within projects like the CGR, allowing the cult of personality to influence articles. Your 'friends' have faith in this article because they have faith in you, and yet your judgement is actually astray in this case, when looked at objectively. So let's consider who or what we really are at WP. For all you know, I might actually be a pedophile playing an elaborate game with you, and I can't be sure that you really are the grandmother you claim to be. So it's important for people at WP to look objectively at articles and at their sources, especially when the topic is as controversial as 'Greek love'. Sometimes it is necessary to be rude and insulting to keep a proper perspective on things (as the Greeks themselves well knew!) This article fails any objective test. McCronion (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it's the title?

I find the objections of User:Lucretius/User:Esseinrebusinanetamenfatearenecessest/User:Amphitryoniades/User:McZeus/User:McCronion more than a little diffuse, but I wonder what would happen if this article were retitled Reception history of Greek pederasty or some such. --Akhilleus (talk) 02:41, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

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