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Historical pederastic couples

• Articles for deletion/Historical pederastic couples
• Articles for deletion/Historical pederastic couples (2nd nomination)

Historical pederastic couples (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article began its life as a list, but has over time become the storinghouse for any uncited claim of any person in history whom any editor wants to claim was involved in pederasty. In a number of cases (e.g. Leonardo DaVinci and Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein), material appears in this omnibus which has been roundly rejected from the main article, thus turning this list into a de-facto POV WP:FORK. Lastly, the decision for this to be a list, rather than a category (which might be defensible) smacks of original research: the desire to synthesize and publish original commentary on Misplaced Pages, which violates WP:NOR.

This article was nominated for deletion a couple of years ago, but the discussion surrounding it was very lightweight, on both sides of the issue. I'm hoping this nomination will get a bit more serious attention and thorough discussion. Nandesuka (talk) 12:14, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

• Delete: "Pederast" is a term of law, not nature, and someone attempting to do political graverobbing is either trying to convict a number of people of a crime posthumously or trying to pile up so many corpses as to argue that the act is no crime. Either thing is bad. The "list" cannot be legitimate unless it serves a function as a list that a category wouldn't perform. Finally, this list is only valid if every single biographical article of every figure contains the information that X and Y were "pederasts." If the authors and editors of those articles eject or reject it, then this is a POV fork. For three reasons: delete. Geogre (talk) 12:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Seems to me to be a serious, generally well-referenced article. Pederast is not a legal term, as claimed, but a term that has been used historically in exactly the way it is used in the article. It was prodded a few days ago by someone who obviously had a POV reason to get it deleted and claimed it was an attempt to "legitimise paedophilia" (as Geogre also suggests above), which it is clearly not. I can see no attempt here to legitimise anything, just to document. If the "pederasty" is only an allegation then that should be reliably referenced, and in most cases it is (and if it is not, then of course it should be removed) - if an allegation against a deceased person has been publicly made and is appropriately referenced then it is encyclopaedic. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Please to find a historical usage of "pederast" that is not an allegation of a crime. Do this first. Second, the list is not documented at all. Having a rumor is having a rumor, and reporting as fact the rumor is foolhardy intellectually, and illegitimate politically. I still await an explanation of what this list does as a list instead of a category that is useful. Geogre (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep but remove uncited examples even if that's 90% of the content. There's precidence for that. I do understand the nominator's objections and concerns. Lists like this soon degrade into unencyclopedic OR, but we're not allowed to ban them based on that. We are, however, allowed and encouraged to remove uncited content especially if it is whatsoever provocative or controversial. - House of Scandal (talk) 14:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
  • It would be 90% or more. Let's put it this way: you find a letter where X says that Y loved him deeply and the two spent all their days together one summer. It was written in 1580. Homosexuality? No. You can find Thomas More and Erasmus speaking that way of each other, and the two were models of probity and heteronormative behavior. In prior ages, it is stupid (not ignorant, but outright stupid) to interpret "love" as more than affection. Discourse changes over time. "Homosexual" as a category did not exist before the 19th century, and therefore something like pedophilia+homosexuality+power (a rough equivalence of "pederasty") is impossible as an application. Unambiguous documentation is so rare as to be unheard of (Oscar Wilde is about as early as anyone may go), so anything about prior ages is speculation or pointed interpretation. Those who read Foucault's History of Sexuality will know that even the ancient Athenian (not "Greek") culture had something where elder men were expected to have younger men, but this very rarely involved sexual intercourse, and these men were also with women (and temple prostitution was rife), so trying to use a contemporary term to limit such lives is inexplicable except to forgive contemporary political and criminal outlaws. Geogre (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

• I wish this article and hundred like it were never created but think this one has a right to exist under current guidelines. I thoroughly understand your argument. Really. Really. But saying "it is stupid (not ignorant, but outright stupid)..." adds no weight to your argument and seem unnecessarily uncivil towards editors who might make good faith errors in interpreting references to events of past centuries. To make such errors would indeed be caused by ignorance of specific cultural context. That's very much a different thing from “outright stupid”-ity. More opinions may be added here that differ from yours. Do stay cool. (c :17:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

• Keep but remove any unsourced material. This page is well written, has a huge number of RS, and otherwise seems to stand up. The only problem is potential BLP issues and the ICK factor. Hobit (talk) 15:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
• Keep after thorough scrubbing. This is bound to need regular oversight (in the non-wiki sense of the word) to guard against inappropriate bias, but clearly a proper article can be written and maintained with proper sources. Once the unsourced and poorly sourced material is removed, what remains is appropriate Misplaced Pages fare. Xymmax _{So let it be done} 16:01, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
• Delete from the same reasons mentioned by Geogre. --Olahus (talk) 17:30, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

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