Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of alleged pedophiles

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 of the debate was Delete. Homey 16:39, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of alleged pedophiles

This article is obviously slander and NPOV as none of these people have actually been proven to be pedophiles. Probably CSDable as an attack and slander page and also per verifiability standards, but I'm not too sure. May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 12:32, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete or speedy per nom. --Quarl 12:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete the fact that the title contains "alleged" is proof of its POV. Pepsidrinka 13:25, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Kill it with fire. POV magnet that promises to get Wikipedia in trouble one day. fuddlemark (fuddle me!) 13:30, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Alleged by who? A list like absolutely needs to have strict inclusion criteria, and outside sourcing for every entry. Neither of these is present. Delete unless these problems are rectified. (Neutral, at best, even if they are.) —Cryptic (talk) 16:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Holy pedophilic shit. Speedy delete. Flyboy Will 16:54, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete maybe celebrities charged with pedophilia??--Gbleem 17:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

  You can't be charged with pedophilia. // paroxysm (n) 17:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• lol. Slander? No more than our "Persons of debated lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation." If this article is kept I can provide sources for all "accusations." // paroxysm (n) 17:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete Possibly libellous, inevitably POV, poorly fleshed-out (suggesting a lack of interest). Furthermore, what does "alleged" mean? Glitter was convicted in a court of law. Jackson settled out of court. Baden-Powell is pure conjecture. The problems, I hope, are manifest. It has to go. Batmanand 19:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete --NaconKantari 19:01, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy Delete Dangerous as it stands, any name could be added, anyone can make allegations. Colin99 20:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

  As said, you better delete our List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people article ASAP, too. // paroxysm (n) 20:18, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

  Actually, let's just delete all of Wikipedia to be safe. As it stands, anything could be added, anyone can make allegations. // paroxysm (n) 20:23, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Being gay is not a sex crime. FCYTravis 21:49, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Being a pedophile is not a sex crime, either. // paroxysm (n) 22:55, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: thanks for bringing "Persons of debated lesbian, gay or bisexual orientation." to my attention, Proxysm. That list needs to be deleted or extremely cleaned up (you were perhaps joking, but I am serious). I looked at some of the articles linked from that list, and they do not have any explanation for why the person is listed there. Others are dubious "debates", i.e. tabloids. Wikipedia is not a tabloid. The entire article (like List of alleged pedophiles) is one giant weasel word (see Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words). --Quarl 00:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Smite from face of Earth- this article is everything I hate: listcruft, POV, personal attacks. Kill kill kill. Reyk 01:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete and recreate, if desired, as a category with SPECIFIC verifiable sourcing guidelines. See Category:Accused Soviet spies. FCYTravis 02:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Rename, rewrite and constrain I am the person who compiled the list in question. Thank you all for your sensible comments. I would not want the wiki community to suffer any harm as a result of what should originally have appeared in the sandbox. Since wikipedia articles already contain information about people associated with pedophilia I propose the following:

  Title: Change to "People associated with pedophilia"

  Rewrite: Include a discussion on listing of pedophiles

  Rules for inclusion: Restrict names on the list to people who:

  a) Are subjects or are named in existing wikipedia articles (pls follow the links to check),

  b) included in which are discussions of their association with pedophilia

--Suidafrikaan 05:14, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete inherently POV and attack. In it's early form it was a clear {{db-attack}}. Now, I'm not sure if it's speedy, but its definately in need of deletion. Also, don't think a name like People associated with pedophilia will make this ok, as that just opens the door to more people being added to it. --Rob 06:10, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  if it is POV then surely all the sections of wiki articles to which it links are subjects for deletion, too. will the proponents of deletion be consistent and follow through with this logic?--Suidafrikaan 06:33, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  If you put an accused murderer, a convicted shoplifter, a convicted serial killer, and a person accused but never formally charged, all in one article entitled List of alleged criminals I would AFD that too. If you renamed it to People associated with criminality and added a defense lawyer, I would definately AFD that. Meanwhile, I would still keep all those individual bio articles. I see no inconsistency with deleting a blacklist, while keeping the subjects of the blacklist. --Rob 06:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Not the articles but the links. I took the link off the pedophilia article. --Gbleem 06:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Robert, I struggle to understand your logic. For each of the names on the list there is a wikipedia article providing all the details that the list summarizes. Why is it that the facts are fine in an article, but as sooon as one lists them this constitutes a blacklist? Same information, different format. I generally consider myself fairly PC but the blacklist logic is PC elevated to the status of faith.--Suidafrikaan 07:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  Context effects meaning. As an example, one of the first people added (later removed) has an article that provides meaningful context of exactly what he was convicted of and what he wasn't convicted of. This list provides little context. The pre-AFD list provided no context whatsoever. Right now, there's a lot of scrutiny, and effort to "clean-up" this thing due only to the AFD. Once the AFD is over, attention will fade, and people will be free to add whatever names they wish. Allegations are closely scrutinized in bio articles, as people familiar with the person review them. But most lists in Wikipedia go largely unnoticed (except by people adding to them), and frequently contain dubeious info, that goes unchallenged. On the pre-AFD article, while it's common to start an article in a low-quality draft stage for its first version, surely something this serious warranted something a little better (there is a "Preview" button, next to the "Save" button after all). If this is kept, we can expect future poorly thought out contributions to the list (as editors will know the article's immune from deletion). --Rob 08:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, unmaintainable, POV. — mark ✎ 11:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete The term 'alleged' makes the article, by its very nature, POV. By grouping those 'alleged' by a few crack-pots with those convicted or sex crimes in a court of law, one clearly enters the region of implying guilt. That, in any jurisdiction, is defamation of character. Besides, even if it weren't, it seems like a pointless article in the first place. What sort of encyclopaedia creates lists of 'alleged' facts (legal or otherwise)? Bastin8 13:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  pedophilia is a sexual preference not a crime, just like homosexuality; hence you're "implying guilt" part is nonsense kthx. and again, it's no more defamation than our List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people. // paroxysm (n) 17:45, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Paedophilia may well be a sexual preference, but, then again, so's rape (which paedophilia is, legally, in England & Wales). Both are illegal in just about any jurisdiction that I could ever imagine, including, for the record, Florida, where Wikimedia is based. I don't care what your personal opinion of paedophilia is, because the only opinion that matters is that of the law, which makes this page defamation, hence illegal. Bastin8 19:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

o rly, Bastin..? Hmmm...

"Pedophilia" is not a legal term. It is a medical term used to describe the sexual attraction to children. Child sexual abuse and et cetera are described in a court of law as child sexual abuse, not pedophilia (for obvious reasons). Tabloids love to use nonsensical phrases like "convicted of pedophilia," though, but uhm, they're tabloids (QED). Pedophilia is not an act, and hence, you can not be convicted of it. Perhaps reading our very own article on pedophilia would be beneficial to you, hmm.. ?

So in the end, I agree, the law is all that matters, and the law doesn't give a damn about pedophilia. You can freely admit you're a pedophile in front of a cop and all he can do is gasp and call you a sicko. Thankfully. // paroxysm (n) 01:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

If you want to argue the toss about the differences between paedophilia and actually raping a child, it's best not to do it when arguing to retain this article. After all, most of the people in the list aren't there for reasons of thought, but for the reason that someone believes them each to have gone through with the act. If that is the justification for inclusion, your argument that the list actually concerns a psychological condition is flawed.

Then, the rectification of that 'flaw' (as you see it) leads to further problems. If we keep the list, and it is used to reflect 'paedophiles' in the more esoteric sense, we would be publishing a list of people's thoughts that are inferred from their behaviour. That is far more Orwellian than the alternative.

Moreover, use of the term 'paedophile' is understood by the public to imply that the paedophile actually practises it, just as is homosexual. Since that is the understanding, it is the definition for purposes of establishing whether the article is defamation. Bastin8 12:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete and block>/s> - List of weaselly defamation. Would provide much opportunity for mischief. WP has no place for such a list. --- Charles Stewart 18:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  Man, I sure do love reading. It's great.

  On your "weaselly" part -- I'll add a reference for these supposed "accusations" now. // paroxysm (n) 19:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  Nevermind, somebody's already done a wonderful job on that. Keep. // paroxysm (n) 19:12, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm having second thoughts about this. This sort of list is very easy to abuse, but clearly efforts have been made to minimise the risk here. The list is still abusable in certain respects:

  1. Two of the sections have rather fluid criteria for inclusion, namely Historical figures alleged to have been pedophiles - what constitutes an allegation? - and People associated with pedophile organizations - what constitutes an association?

  2. The list has four rather different sorts of sections, and there is no clear reason why other sections might not be added. What looks to be a policeable list might easily become unpoliceable in time.

• So my second thoughts are that the page might not be so unpoliceable in time. I'll vote keep if we can establish some clear discipline for maintaining the list, but I'm dubious now. --- Charles Stewart 03:44, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

• For the record, Shreshth91, slander is oral defamation. I think the word you're looking for is libel which is written defamation. If libel is anyone's sincere concern then I trust that you will all be calling for deletion of the articles on Michael Jackson, Gary Glitter, and any number of biographical wikiworks that contain rumours, allegations, and sourced opinions.--Suidafrikaan 05:01, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

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.