Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pedophobia

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. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 18:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pedophobia

Pedophobia (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

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Dicdef Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 17:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep. I think it goes very slightly beyond the dicdef by including the adultism thing, and it certainly has the potential to expand into a good encyclopedia article. Why not add an expand tag instead of deleting? Plus, it is referenced to an article by an anti-ageism group. If others do choose to delete, I'd suggest considering a redirect to ageism. delldot | talk 19:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC) Changing to merge to Ephebiphobia per KeithTyler's comment below: Ephebiphobia already has a short bit about Pedophobia, so the merge should be really easy anyway. Switching back to keep per KPalicz (am I wishy washy, or what?) delldot | talk 18:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • This could be added to Ephebiphobia. Pedophobia and Ephebiphobia probably should be merged at best. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 23:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Merge to Ephebiphobia or Keep. It most certainly does exist and this is legitimate/useful information.

Also, a well-known example: Jean-Luc Picard's "character flaw" seemed to be some form of Pedophobia, although he overcame it as the series progressed. Yes, that was nerdy, but it had to be said. - Scharb 02:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete The key is the source of the name. Some web sites have created lists of many hundreds of phobias. (Spartaphobia is fear of Sparta, etc). What are the sources that say this is a psycological fear? The fact that this word exists on the net and a web article discussing ageism puts the word in a box is not enough for me. Is the word used other than on web lists? With no better sources I think no article and redirect to Ageism is fine.Obina 22:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The topic of pedophobia is explored in several academic circles, and there is substantial evidence to support its maintenance as an article. See updates. Freechild 02:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • By way of critical thinking, I've gotta ask why the articles about child and youth related oppression continually run up against this type of resistance within the Wikipedia community. I look up terms like gynarchy and androcracy and manx cat, and all of them lack citations of any kind - yet their validity is undoubted. However, ephebiphobia, adultism, and student voice, have all been extremely scrutized - and now this. How biased is the Wikipedia community against young people and the realities they face every single day? Unfortunately, with the call to delete this article I am afraid the answer is coming clearer. Freechild 05:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Per KeithTyler's comment above: The two words mean two different things, sourced in their roots. Academic literature supports the differentiation between them. Is it Wikipedia's place to negate what the academy has proven?Freechild 07:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: 8 google scholar hits, the word appears in the title of a 1995 book. Opinion of an expert may be better than the voting. Pavel Vozenilek 06:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep While it is similar to ephebiphobia, they talk about two different groups of people (teens vs. children) and some people may fear children but be ok with youth and vice versa. They are distinct enough to warrant individual pages I believe. KPalicz 13:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. The entire article is nonsense. It is original research and special pleading. It's highly questionable whether there ought to be an article on "pedophibia", and if there should it would probably be better to delete this one and start from scratch. We have had the same problem over at Ephebiphobia... the technique used is the same: establish (or try to) the existance of an obscure medical condition and then use that for leverage to write a social advocacy essay. OK, first: as to the medical condition "pedophobia": there's no question that the number of people who are subject to actual phobic reactions (panic, shortness of breath, sweating, etc.) brought on by the idea or presence of children is not zero. The number of people who have phobic reactions brought on by the idea or presence of spiced ham, Bob Hope, slotted spoons, or most anything is usually not zero, either. We don't have articles for each of these; I think we have one article where obscure phobias are given a one-line listing. I think that "pedophobia" rates a line in this list and no more. Second: as to the social phenomena "pedophobia", I'm not at all convinced that fear/scorn/hatred of children is sufficiently well established by verifiable neutral respected authority that the assertion of its notability is not original research. (Unlike Ephebiphobia, which article deserves existence because Ephebiphobia (fear/scorn/hatred of teens) is a real enough phenomena.) Yes, some people think that children are ridiculous or despicable. That does not in any way require this article's existence. Lots of people think that mullets are ridiculous or despicable; lots of people hate cheese; lots of people think frogs are slimy and disgusting; and so forth. We don't have separate articles for these. The article looks on the surface to be scholarly. Closer examination shows that it is not, and ought to be deleted. And I don't say that lightly. Herostratus 21:44, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Since when is it the domain of Wikipedia editors to decide the relevance or veritability of established scientific study? Is this discussion really about the legitimacy of this article, or individual editors' opinions about the subject at hand? Are those two things synonomous, or does meeting the encyclopedic premise of Wikipedia supercede personal perspectives? Also, Herostratus, it would be good to see where your "closer examination" shows that the citations are not scholarly - and I don't say that lightly, either. Freechild 23:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh, we judge the relevance and verifiability of sources and material all the time; that's what we do here. The discussion of is about the legitimacy of the article, the point being that, basically, there is no such term as pedophobia. Wikipedia is not the place for articles about terms that you yourself have made up. It is also not your personal soapbox. Get yourself published in sociological journals, establish the term "pedophobia" as an actual term in the literature, and we'd be happy to have the article. Not til then. However, I doubt that anyone will publish your work until you use more rigrorous reasoning. Your essay (and this is what it is, not an encyclopedia article) transparently attempts to conflate medical and sociological terminolgy for advocacy purposes. Scholarly journals don't fall for that. Sorry to be harsh, but there it is. Herostratus 03:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

You have not directly addressed your concerns about the illegitimacy of the references, nor have you shown that any of the publications or other sources cited here is illegitimate. I don't understand your charges of me "making up" a term when the article references academic journals, publishers, organizations, psychotherapists, social scientists, critical pedagogues, and even a few other advocates who have used the term - dating back into the 1980s, when I was probably the subject of the said non-existant phobia. Can you please explain how this term doesn't make your grade, and what gives you more authority than the articles referenced? Does anyone else support that concern? And for the sake of being pithy, can you compare and contrast why soapbox has an article of its own, but pedophobia should not? Freechild 07:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per User:Pavel Vozenilek - Jord 16:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep (Nom) Recent expansion has illustrated a distinction with ephebiphobia which may have merit. Also, sources have been added. I'm not withdrawing the nom, because this discussion is still worth having. BTW for those that care about such things, the GC for this term is 11,000. - Keith D. Tyler ¶ (AMA) 17:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• keep Most certianly is a real concept, is well known, and a good article on this topic should be written.--Sefringle 03:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• keep The group of articles might need sorting out a little. But that's no reason to delete.DGG 05:01, 10 January 2007 (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.