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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Construction

This page is currently under construction, and in the process of being edited. This page should not be deleted, it is a current and progressive issue that is not really being covered. The site is based upon facts, not opinion and personal judgement; it has an unbiased tone.Clmclm1234chma (talk) 05:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

No. The line: “Koss, Gidyczi, and Wisniewski found in a study that almost 54 percent of American college women had experienced some form of sexual assault. Twenty-five percent of American college males admitted to sexual coercion in some form.” shows a gender-oriented bias in the article; Women can be sexually assaulted, men can only be “coerced.” This must be fixed to maintain full credibility. (I assume the good faith of the author of this article; It’s a common sexist theory that “men can’t be raped.”) A REDDSON

After reading this article, there seems to be a hint of bias coming from the sole author of this article. Using a college survey from 1996 is very misleading. In fact, the most recent credible data I can find on this comes from 2000, which over a decade old. Further analysis into this "survey" shows numerous flaws in the system. While in some circles, unwanted sexual advances, or in common lingo "creeping", is considered rape, I believe it should not be labeled and grouped with instances in which sexual acts are forced upon a victim. In fact the survey does acknowledge this and says that 2.8% of college women have actually experienced attempted / completed rape. I thus have updated the source and included the relevant information.

In today's scare conscious society, it is not necessary to scare every mom and potential college graduate and make them paranoid. Of course, it is important to teach them how to handle unwanted sexual advances, but that is bound to happen in any social environment in one's point of life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.190 (talk) 07:19, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

5 July 2011 (UTC)

The article was tagged for cleanup but not deletion. You should consider adding a few links to other articles, possibly in a See Also section. Likewise you could add links to this page in related wiki articles. If you need any help with this then feel free to ask either here or on my talks page. Good work so far! -Nem1yan (talk) 13:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
Didnt see that the page had been nominated for deletion earlier and apparently it was. Still, good work on the page so far and you probably wont have to worry about any more deletion nominations from here on out. -Nem1yan (talk) 13:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Twenty Five Percent

I have (perhaps temporarily) removed the following sentence from the introduction, on the grounds of verifiability (especially WP:EXCEPTIONAL):

"Twenty-five percent of American college males admitted to sexual coercion in some form." ref = Furtado, C., "Perceptions of Rape: Cultural, Gender, and Ethnic Differences" in Sex Crimes and Paraphilia Hickey, E.W. (ed.), Pearson Education, 2006, ISBN 0131703501, pp. 385–395.

I have done several searches through "Sex Crimes and Paraphilia" for the citation and have found nothing. Surely, even if we were to use this citation, it would require an in-text attribution to the study from which it comes. Can anyone find and verify the cited material? Thank you. 68.96.52.9 (talk) 03:23, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

...with surveys placing it as low as 1 in 50 (2%) to as high as 1 in 4 (25%)

I replaced the source for the 25% claim with citation needed. I don't want to come off as a douche, but the 25% number doesn't really reflect what the source says. Here's what's presumably being referenced.

However, if the 2.8 percent victimization figure is calculated for a 1-year period, the data suggest that nearly 5 percent (4.9 percent) of college women are victimized in any given calendar year. Over the course of a college career—which now lasts an average of 5 years—the percentage of completed or attempted rape victimization among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter.

And in the footnotes to that comment...

These projections are suggestive. To assess accurately the victimization risk for women throughout a college career, longitudinal research following a cohort of female students across time is needed.

So yea, there is a 1-in-4 number there, but it's a projection that the source itself hedges pretty hard on, to the point of saying it's not accurate. The 1-in-4 bit is there to illustrate the possible severity of the results of the study. It's not really a claim in itself.

I didn't want to remove the number because there has to be another source out there to represent the high end of the estimation band.

--76.122.57.4 (talk) 04:06, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey there. I'm not sure which citation you removed but I've replaced it. The one-in-four statistics, accurate or not, is all over the place. It's possible it was just poorly sourced before. This should do, though. 68.96.52.9 (talk) 03:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

POV section

This section has been flagged for neutrality and needs to be cleaned up. I can not verify the source, but likely this needs an in line attribution, i.e. "According to suchandsuch...":

Rape on college campuses is under-reported to the university authorities, and even less to the police. There are three general attitudes that colleges have regarding rape: first is to not condone rape, but not to punish it either, second response is to keep the issue low-key while handling it, and third is to criminalize rape. Colleges deal with campus rape in ways such as advocating for the victim as well as being concerned and ethical; while others ignore the issue and may blame the victim. Colleges may react leniently to avoid bad publicity or any kind of financial loss.

If anyone has the source available, please confirm the attribution. Thank you. 68.96.52.9 (talk) 03:45, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Male-male

Please don't forget that men can be raped. The opening paragraphs do not reflect this well. May want to consider changing the wording. 130.88.85.133 (talk) 01:30, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

9-1-1?

There is one factor that isn't addressed explicitly. Nor do I have the answer. In some cases, the victim presumably dials 9-1-1 ASAP. The campus police are sent instead of municipal police? Is that true? Then the campus is able to "control" what gets out.

In other words, police WILL investigate if I call 9-1-1 from my home or other non-collegiate location. There will be a report written as the result of this call. Which in turn can be reviewed by "reviewing authorities."

But in a campus call, there may be good reasons for sending the campus police. The victim cannot give a street address usually, but will say "I'm in the Quad," "by the side of the Kenyon building" or whatever. The municipal police would never find them.

In both cases, when it comes down to whether to believe the alleged victim or the alleged perpetrator, both would probably urge the victim not to pursue it further if there was no other witness, no DNA, and the alleged victim DID have a "relationship" with the alleged perpetrator, delay of a day or more in reporting, etc.. So there are reasons not to pursue a report into filing a formal complaint.

But who gets the 9-1-1 call and why? This is missing. If it's anything that's not an easily remembered 3 digit number, the victim isn't going to call them first! (Note that this is all US-centric). Student7 (talk) 00:42, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

This is interesting, if there is an existing article or report on this then it would help the article in its inclusion --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 01:00, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

False Title, Gross Misuse of Statistics

This article makes a series of deliberately false statements.

(1) The title is "campus rape", which it defines as the rape of a university student. Yet the statistics it immediately cites are for all sexual assault, which are obviously higher. So either the title must be changed to "campus sexual assault" or the non-rape statistics omitted.

(2) The article claims one estimate for the prevalence of sexual assault during college is 25%. That is absolutely false. The survey cited did NOT collect data about rape during college. It asked undergraduates if they had experienced sexual assault at ANY time since age 14, not "during college." And even the alleged 6% rape statistic for those attacked within the year is meaningless, because (a) a first year college student who was raped within a year might have been raped in high school, and (b) the rape of college student at home or while away from school between semester would not be campus rape.

(3) The 25% survey is nearly 30 years old, and sponsored by an agenda-driven feminist magazine. For all the reasons cited above, as well as the flaws cited in the article itself, it is completely irrelevant to the issue of campus rape or campus sexual assault. All references to it must be removed. GaiaHugger (talk) 15:06, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

All of these are valid criticisms. I would support renaming the article from "campus rape" to "campus sexual assault." Regarding the Koss survey with the 1-in-4 statistic, despite its severe methodological flaws, it has been central to the national discussion of these issues and for that reason is relevant. Rather than removing mention of it altogether, I'd recommend adding a discussion of its flaws and citing some of the articles that debunk it. DGAgainstDV (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
It's not an issue of merely "methodological flaws." Even if the study were flawless, the article indisputably lies about its scope and finding. NO survey has EVER found -- INCLUDING THE KOSS SURVEY -- that the prevalence of campus sexual assault is 1-in-4. The Koss survey did not even purport to measure campus sexual assault. It asked some women, who happened to be attending college, whether they had been sexually assualted at any time SINCE THE AGE OF 14. And as noted, it did NOT look limit to the assaults to those committed on campus, and did not ask whether the student was actually enrolled at the time of the rapes occurring within one year. In short, the study had nothing to do with campus sexual assault, other than that the women were on a campus when handed the survey. To leave the article as is would be like writing an article on "Campus Tonsilectomy" and saying the rate of tonsillectomies on campus was 50% because 50 of the students has the operation when they were four years old. 107.77.76.53 (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the problems with the Koss study. The fact is that it has been widely used, and most people who have read or heard anything about rape at colleges and universities are familiar with the 1-in-4 statistic. Rather than eliminating mention of it, we should explain why it's been discredited. DGAgainstDV (talk) 17:39, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
There is no RS cited for the proposition that it is widely used, in connection with campus rape or otherwise. And again, the question isn't whether it's "flawed", but whether it is relevant at all to campus rape. In any event, I've left in a full description of its scope. I think the discussion of it under prevalence should be removed, as the data is 30 years old and the college kids of that era are starting to have grandchildren by now.74.64.17.21 (talk) 05:47, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
This recent Slate article outlines the issues with the statistics - note that some of the researchers who are cited do not support how their research is being used. The Koss study is pretty dated and was far from scientific. We can use more recent and authoritative work. If we do want to include the Koss work, we should have a section on the rates, and have it in context as a older study with elucidation on what it says vs. how it's been represented. The Yoffe article does an excellent job laying out what the studies do and don't measure, and the issues with them. She doesn't refer to Koss, partly because it's really not authoritative in the least, but I'm sure we can find RS that provide context and explain its limitations. Mattnad (talk) 18:15, 13 December 2014 (UTC)
Mattnad, regarding edits like this and this, I don't consider it so much a matter of updating when it's mostly relying on a single source about rape statistics in the United States. Campus rape obviously is not simply a United States matter. And statistics vary depending on the sources. WP:Secondary scholarly sources are often the best type of sources to use for rape information, even if the sources have statistics from a few years ago. Compiling rape statistics or other rape information can take a couple or few years, and so one rape aspect might be dated to 2012 as opposed to 2014. I suggest you look on Google Books for good scholarly sources for the topic of campus rape. Flyer22 (talk) 22:31, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Sonicyouth86, as someone who deals with these types of topics, do you have any opinion on this matter? Flyer22 (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
Mattnad replaced content sourced to several sources with content sourced to a report that used the narrowest definition possible. I don't see the rationale for prioritizing this definition over broader definitions of rape. For now, I think it's best to restore the removed academic sources and use them alongside the BJS report. What it shows is that there are different prevalence estimates depending on the definition used. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 22:46, 21 December 2014 (UTC)
I agree. Flyer22 (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the article as previously written is that it had multiple, conflicting views on what is rape, measured different periods, populations, and used varying methodologies that are often hidden from the reader or unavailable. As for the definition of rape being too narrow... well....the Justice department study defines rape as follows (Page 11):

  • Rape is the unlawful penetration of a person against the will of the victim, with use or threatened use of force, or attempting such an act. Rape includes psychological coercion and physical force, and forced sexual intercourse means vaginal, anal, or oral penetration by the offender. Rape also includes incidents where penetration is from a foreign object (e.g., a bottle), victimizations against males and females, and both heterosexual and homosexual rape. Attempted rape includes verbal threats of rape.
  • Sexual assault is defined across a wide range of victimizations separate from rape or attempted rape. These crimes include attacks or attempted attacks usually involving unwanted sexual contact between a victim and offender. Sexual assault may or may not involve force and includes grabbing or fondling.

This is not a particularly narrow definition. What it does not do, and perhaps this is where you might believe it's too narrow, is use ambiguous questions like, "did you have unintended sex when you were drunk" which is then characterized as rape by the researcher, but not by the respondent. The academic sources are sometime very old... 1985 with the Koss study? That's 30 years ago.

This study is newer, more robust in it's data collection methods, and avoids many of the pitfalls of older studies. It would be better to have comprehensive view of the big picture rather than one study that says one in four, another that says one in five, one that says 1 in 36. Other problems with using different sources for different sections is there is no cohesive view - you cannot connect the dots between the subsets.

In my day job I manage a team of data analysts and statisticians. This article before I started clean-up was a dogs breakfast of conflicting and confusing stats. I'd be interesting in hearing from these editors why they prefer that approach. Mattnad (talk) 01:10, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Mattnad, it's not improving the article by mostly relying on a single source about rape statistics in the United States, or only content dealing with the United States. The article is currently tagged as lacking a worldwide view of the subject because of that type of editing from various editors. I already pointed you to Google Books, and stated that using sources from a few years ago, or even several years ago, can be perfectly fine. In fact, using older sources can make for a more comprehensive article by showing how the data has changed over the years, or by documenting historical aspects (30-year-old cases would fall into the "historical aspect" for this article). Some newer sources cite older studies for a comprehensive approach. As for Sonicyouth86's statement above, I am aware of the FBI/department in question having broadened its definition of rape a couple of years ago (in 2012). I was agreeing with Sonicyouth86 that "For now, I think it's best to restore the removed academic sources and use them alongside the BJS report. What it shows is that there are different prevalence estimates depending on the definition used." Again, there are appropriate ways to include older studies. Flyer22 (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
The older studies are there and I included a comparison in the lede part of the prevalence section relating to methology and what's being measured. As for Koss and the 1997 study (which incidentally was updated in 2001, so we should probably use that), the earlier article content is unchanged. I added a recent analysis from Slate for that later study. What I have done is harmonize the statistics in later portions of the article so that they tie. That's how it's done in the real word where you're trying to help the reader get the big picture.Mattnad (talk) 13:55, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I've also been clear about how things are done in the real world, above and lower in another discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 03:16, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

2014 DOJ study

First time poster here: the article as currently written appears to lean heavily on a recent BJS assessment which found that the rate of self-reported rape among college students This is an analysis of longitudinal data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), not a new study. The NCVS methodology very likely under-reports rape Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault but is used in this particular study because it allows the authors to make a longitudinal comparison between college and non-college populations.

Its not clear why this should be the primary citation for the prevalence or annual rate of rape on campus, given that its stated purpose is to discover trends over time and between group differences rather than to accurately estimate the prevalence or rate of sexual assault on college campuses. At the very least, edits need to be made to introduce the limitations of the NCVS methodology (i.e: it doesn't ask about incapacitated rape or assault, and its tone, administration, and context can discourage discourage disclosures) and a more balanced discussion of the alternative studies should be included.

Nblund (talk) 19:24, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

It is a new study in that took a more precise approach to measuring assault. You then wrote "...rather than to accurately estimate the prevalence or rate of sexual assault on college campuses." If you read the report, it's purpose is to measure the rate and does so explicitly. It also allows for women to include "incapacitated rape" but it does not go as far as other studies to call "intoxicated sex" rape. It instead lets the women device whether or not she was raped or sexually assaulted. Other studies are included in the article, but this one is recent, highly cited, and comprehensive. Mattnad (talk) 20:44, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Its not new, and I'm not sure it is more precise. "[The NCVS] does not measure the low incidence events of rape and sexual assault with the precision needed for policy and research purposes" Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault. Even if it is more precise, its less accurate -- both seem like important aspects of the question at hand.
The authors state that the study "describes and compares the characteristics of student and nonstudent female victims of rape and sexual assault, the attributes of the victimization, and the characteristics of the offender." They note that they use the NCVS data because it allows for comparison across subgroups. At no point in the study do they claim that these data offer greater precision or accuracy over other methods.
Neither the CSA, nor the NISVS, nor the Koss study, nor any other study that I'm aware of classifies "intoxicated sex" as rape. The CSA questionnaire asks about sexual contact that occurred while a person was unconscious or otherwise unable to consent. The NCVS asks uses this definition: "Rape is the unlawful penetration of a person against the will of the victim, with use or threatened use of force, or attempting such an act." (p. 10 of the BJS study) -- the possibility of rape by incapacitation is, at best, implicit.
The only new finding in the BJS study is that the rate of rape among college age students off campus may be higher than on campus. The entry as written acknowledges exactly zero weaknesses, and sells the data for more strongly than even the authors themselves do. For instance, the authors acknowledge that the over time trend is not statistically distinguishable (p.3), yet it is cited uncritically in the entry as a real reflection of a decline in rape among the population of interest. This is just not a balanced presentation Nblund (talk) 17:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
You should read the methodology section of the study. They are quite specific about the improvements including use of phone interviews and a much higher response rate. Since they let the women determine whether or not they were assaulted, that's also more accurate and frankly a reflection of real life. Drunk sex does not necessarily mean rape, but that's how the CSA and Koss studies interpreted it which of course inflates the numbers. The Koss Study (circa 1985 no less) and the CSA allowed for possible assault when the woman was under the influence of drugs or alcohol to be characterized as assault even though they admit that the vast majority (75% Koss, 68% CSA) of those women did not characterize it as assault. The CSA authors have further admitted that their study was representative of only two schools: Quoting from the Yoffe article, "I asked the lead author of the study, Christopher Krebs, whether the CSA represents the experience of those millions of female students. His answer was unequivocal: “We don’t think one in five is a nationally representative statistic.” It couldn’t be, he said, because his team sampled only two schools. “In no way does that make our results nationally representative,” Krebs said." Do you want bad data, just because it supports your world view?Mattnad (talk) 18:35, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
They discuss both advantages and disadvantages. Telephone surveys allow for clarifying questions, but they also can be subject to interviewer effects and sampling biases -- this is all discussed in the methodology and appendixes sections of that study. None of those caveats made it in to the entry, and so it gives the distinct impression that these results are authoritative despite the fact that a study commissioned by the DOJ itself has discussed the significant flaws in the methodology of the NCVS.
The Campus Sexual Assault survey asks about experiences with unwanted sexual contact while you were unable to provide consent or stop what was happening because you were passed out, drugged, drunk, incapacitated, or asleep (emphasis mine) It does not classify all drunk sex as rape, its classifies non-consensual sex as rape -- which seems like a perfectly reasonable interpretation.
Other methods have flaws and limitations as well, but these are already discussed in the entry. The question is why none of the flaws of the NCVS (including ones discussed in the very source we're discussing) are mentioned, and why the results are treated as authoritative despite the fact that this claim is not made by the authors of the study being cited.
My proposal would be to rework the entry so that the prevalence and incidence section gives an initial discussion of the range of estimates and the inherent uncertainty, and then very briefly discusses the Koss study, the CSA, the National Victimization of Women study, and the NCVS (and any others that are relevant) -- perhaps in a fashion similar to the "prevalence" section of the False accusation of Rape entry. I'm currently working up something along this line, but I'd be happy to take advise are collaborate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 19:45, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm up for that. I would discard the Koss Study from the upfront. It's 30 years old, and is so rife with sample, survey questionnaire, and interpretation problems (which Koss herself has admitted to some degree, particularly ambiguous questions). We can keep it in the later section as an historical view. Also, I'd prefer that we focus on rape prevalence, rather than broadly quoting sexual assault (except where necessary). One of the big areas of confusion has been the conflation of all sexual assaults, including very minor ones, with more serious crimes like rape. We should also consider using a tiered approach to the data. So (1) reported, (2) surveyed results where the criminal definition is applied, and then (3) surveys where the broader, and much more ambiguous surveys which include grey areas like intoxication (rather than incapacitation which is typically captured in the criminal definition). Then as we go down the article in the sub-categories, we should try to be disciplined in using a consistent set of numbers. The BJS is more authoritative than the KOSS or CSA (which has disclaimers all over it that it does not reflect the views and opinions of the DOJ, and one of its key authors has stated it should not be used to represent a national view). The NCVS is authoritative, but took a broader look from a health perspective so unintended (but consensual) sex was included in their stats. They also did not do a longitudian view and had to extrapolate a lot to get to their high level stat, which is amply discussed in the Yoffe article (among others).Mattnad (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm with you on the idea of separating crimonological and public health surveys. My inclination is to just introduce the discrepancies in results based on public health vs. criminology perspectives and then combine the Koss, CSA, and NCWVS (public health surveys) results and the BJS and college crime reporting results in one or two paragraphs. A detailed discussion of each study just seems beyond the scope here, and its probably repetitive given that there really isn't a major difference between the findings of the various public health surveys.
I agree that the different types of sexual assault shouldn't be conflated, but it seems like discussion ought to focus more broadly on the problem of campus sexual in general, and then include a breakdown of the typology. Clarity is important, but I don't see any reason to narrow the focus primarily to rape, because that isn't what the research does and it isn't what the national dialogue does.
All three of the public health studies (Koss, CSA, and NCWSV) ask about unwanted and non-consensual sex in fairly specific terms. Here are the prefaces used in each
  • Koss- Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because...
  • NCWSV - has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to...
  • CSA - has someone had sexual contact with you when you were unable to provide consent or stop what was happening...
Its fairly clear here that "unintended but consensual sex" wouldn't count as long as the respondent understood the question. This is, again, probably a discussion more appropriate to a general entry on rape statistics, but the various wordings seem to produce very similar results indicating a prevalence of somewhere between 1 in 4 to 1 in 6. The real discrepancy is between public health surveys -- which focus on prevalence and that use specific behavioral descriptions to ask about non-consensual sexual conduct -- and criminological surveys which focus on incidence and ask directly about "rape" and "assault".

Nblund (talk) 18:38, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Frankly, in my view the only reliable study to represent a national view among those you've mentioned is the NCWSV for reasons already covered. Even with the NCWSV, the problem with the "has anyone made or tried to make you have sexual intercourse or sexual contact when you did not want to..." question as I understand it is that it allowed for instances where the person didn't feel like it, but didn't object, and even did consent. Simply being pressured to have sex, or giving into that pressure is not rape in the legal or conventional meanings of sexual assault or rape. Furthermore, even completely non-consensual, "sexual contact" that does not involve penetration is not rape. These are areas where the BJS study differs from the NCWSV in that it more tightly defines sexual assault and rape. The article topic is specific to "campus rape" and I think editorially we should stick close to that in the prevalence discussion.Mattnad (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
I should correct my earlier statement: It looks like the NCWSV study uses the "when you did not want to" preface only for measuring "sexual coercion". Their measure of rape only includes rape by force of threat of force -- (see exhibit 2). here). So the wording is, "...has anyone made you have [oral, anal, vaginal penetration listed] by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you". All of the studies in question here define "rape" exclusively as oral, anal, or vaginal penetration and count it separately from sexual assault.
I get your point about the title, but maybe its the title that needs to be changed? Why should there be an entry that exclusively discusses campus rape and rape alone? Is there going to be a separate entry called "Campus sexual assault (not including rape)", or is that conversation going to being absent entirely? The discussion, in both the press and in academia, frames "rape" as a part of a broader sexual assault problem.

Nblund (talk) 00:59, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There are already several articles under the umbrella of sexual assault already that provide a much broader context. Campus rape is a specific area, in part because of recent notoriety and activism around the crime (which is also why it's pretty much a US only topic). If we broaden it, then it becomes duplicative of the other articles. There's a tendency in Wikipedia for articles to stray from their core topics and get bloated. As an editor, I try to stick to the topic so that we can go deep into the specifics that are not covered well. If you want to link to other articles, we use "see also" tags or wikilinks. Take a look at articles on scientific topics (ie, macro biology such as Flamingo) - they tend to be very good about focusing on the topic without getting into a lot of detail about the larger picture.Mattnad (talk) 12:44, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
None of the studies we're discussing discuss "rape" exclusively, none of the media sources cited in the entry discuss "rape" exclusively. None of the legislation or official statements by college administrators or politicians discuss "rape" exclusively. Articles on rape already exist, if its duplicative of those articles to discuss "campus sexual assault" then its duplicative to discuss "campus rape" as well. Sexual Assault in the United States Military seems like the closest analogue here -- and it parallels the public and academic dialogue by discussing rape as a part of parcel of a broader issue of sexual assault.
I have a hard time imagining what a campus sexual assault (not including rape) entry would even look like. It seems like it would essentially cite exactly the same material and have essentially the same set of issues and discussions. Wouldn't that be duplicative? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
I'm not saying we have no mention of sexual assault. What I sense in your writing is that you would like to add a lot of material on it in a much larger context. You are new to Wikipedia, and are currently singularly focused on this article so you may lack perspective on keeping things organized without too much overlap. This is a sub-article on a broader topic amply covered in other areas. So we should be parsimonious about repeating too much.
As a separate topic, you might benefit from reading past discussions by several other editors. You have pretty much ignored the concerns about the Koss Study. By making it the first part of the prevalence section, that gives it prominence that other editors feel is not due. Part of the way wikipedia works is consensus. You may want the article a certain way, but you need to take into consideration past discussions as well (I will give you kudos for politely engaging me here).Mattnad (talk) 22:14, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
* For starters: the wholesale reverting is eliminating the discussion of the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study -- I see no reason for this. Its one of the most widely cited and most recent studies of campus assault, its even mentioned in the segment on the BJS study, but its only brought up to be criticized. I don't think a wholesale reversion, including eliminating new information about a prominent study with no discussion at all, is particularly in line with the notion of editing by consensus.
*The Koss study was not the first part of the prevalence section. The first part discussed the wide variation in findings and then discussed each of the major studies in chronological order. Given that the discussion of the BJS findings mentioned the other studies (the CSA and the NCSV), it seems like it belongs at the bottom solely for clarity. If this is really just about the ordering of the discussion, I think reverse chronological would be equally reasonable. What isn't reasonable is the current version, which places the BJS findings directly under prevalence and then places everything else under an "other studies and controversy" section as if the BJS findings aren't controversial. The problems with the rape reporting on National Crime Victimization Survey are extensively documented and backed by decades of research, including work by the National Research Council that was commissioned by the BJS itself -- no discussion of those flaws appears to have occurred among previous editors on this page, but I would be happy to provide that discussion if needed.
*The previous version also includes the discussion of the flaws in the Koss study, even though they came from a not-terribly-reputable source and several of the points are nonsensical (i.e: the fact that most women don't refer to it as "rape" is actually Koss' main point).
*The BJS study did not find a statistically significant downward trend in rape on or off campus. The discussion seems misleading given that the difference between 1995 and 2013 was within the margin of error. Nblund (talk) 00:44, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I haven't had a lot of time to focus on this article, but suffice it to say you are cherry picking and emphasizing sources that do not conform to the most reliable data. Your recent edit stating that "In the United States, rape is the most common crime committed on college campuses" is not accurate. I take that edit as a sign of very bad faith and bias. Furthermore, you have ignored the talk page discussions on the topic and have resorted to giving "studies" that maximize the "prevalence" with no context. For instance, you removed the details where one of the main authors of the CSA states it should not be used to represent a national view. I'm all for a broad view on the topic, but it is not in the interest of the encyclopia to introduce and maintain wrong conclusions and a biased expression of the findings.Mattnad (talk) 17:45, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I left out the word "violence" -- I changed it and added a citation. I didn't remove anything from the CSA study section. I may not have included something that you felt needed inclusion, but that's the reason I'm not the only editor. I think your tone and approach here are counter-productive and unwarranted.
As for the introduction: I have a hard time seeing how presenting an inclusive range of estimates is "cherry picking". What's wrong with presenting a range of findings? Why should the BJS 2014 study be the only finding discussed in the introductory section? Isn't that cherry picking?
There are a set of consistent findings across several decades of research and multiple methodologies that place the prevalence somewhere between 1 in 10 to 1 in 6. Some had nationally representative samples of campuses, some didn't, some used behaviorally specific questions, some didn't, some used telephones, some didn't. There is no perfect study here, but there is a general consensus that the rate of sexual assault is in the upper end of that 10%-25% range and there is also a general consensus among researchers that the NCVS systematically under-estimates sexual assault and rape. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 20:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 22 December 2014

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No move. As several commentors noted, it sounds like this article's problems will be better handled through editing rather than moving. Cúchullain t/c 18:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)


Campus rape → Campus rape in the United States – This article is 100% about the US. The cited research to date has focused on the US. While the topic may have relevance elsewhere, the article has little to no global perspective Mattnad (talk) 17:06, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Or someone else can fix it. In any case, there is no WP:DEADLINE to fix it, and moving the article is no solution. VQuakr (talk) 08:06, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
The article has never deviated from a nearly exclusively US centric view from its start to the present. The tag is recent (from a few days ago), but that doesn't change the essence of the article. The problem is not with the content, its the name. We could remove the tag I suppose, and just accept that nearly all of the available, verifiable material reflects the US and leave it at that.Mattnad (talk) 03:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Like I essentially stated below, WP:Systematic bias is no excuse. Not in this case at least. The problem with the article is indeed the content. And that you think that the solution is to change the name of the article is, well... I already replied below. Flyer22 (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. The article is almost four years old and nothing from outside the U.S. has been added. The title should accurately reflect the article's contents and not a biased view that U.S. = World. This move would not stop anyone from creating a new article on campus rape in general. —  AjaxSmack  02:32, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. It's been a major political issue in the United States in recent years, and that's what the article focuses on. An additional article can be added if there is material to add on other countries in the future. DGAgainstDV (talk) 02:55, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
There already exists "material to add on other countries," as seen on Google Books when using the phrase "Campus rape across cultures," or when one types in a country beside the term "campus rape" on Google Books. Depending on the search term or phrase, regular Google likely pulls up some news sources focusing on or mentioning campus rape in one or more other countries. Of course, there is not readily available information about campus rape in all countries or all parts of the world, and the term campus rape might be more prevalent in the United States, but there is no excuse for the Campus rape article focusing only on the United States, especially when it presents its material in a way that gives the impression that it's about the world in general. A WP:Requested move should not be a substitution for article cleanup. We generally should not state, "Oh? The article is only about that one country? Then let's change the title. Problem solved." That's not what Template:Globalize/US is for. And we ideally should only create a WP:Spinout article when needed. Flyer22 (talk) 03:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
And if we're going to focus on the accuracy of the article title, well, as was pointed out in the "False Title, Gross Misuse of Statistics" section above, titling the article "Campus sexual assault" would be more accurate. Of course, editors can debate WP:Common name and all that. By contrast, the War rape article, which is predominantly about rape, was recently titled Wartime sexual violence because of a WP:Requested move discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 03:29, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I scanned your google search. Just because the words "campus", "rape" and "culture" appear in the books doesn't mean they address Campus rape as defined by the article. Some of the books refer to war crimes that happened on campuses - not the same topic.Mattnad (talk) 03:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
If I didn't know what I was talking about, I would not have pointed you to Google Books. You chose to pile on more United States information instead of expanding the article's scope. That was your decision. Flyer22 (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
You don't have to note that you support the move request; that goes without stating. Flyer22 (talk) 03:39, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support WP:SYSTEMATICBIAS, WP:PRECISE per nom, the article is not a general article, it is a US article, so the name of the article should match its scope. We should not use US-based articles as the general topic article, as they are US-focused articles, and so should be named accordingly. The amount of material for a U.S. article is such that a general article should be created separate from the US content, to avoid bias and unbalancing articles to skew towards a US focus. A summary of this article can appear in the new general article that gives a worldview of the topic. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 04:30, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
And yet again, IP, here we are disagreeing on the assertion of WP:Systematic bias, and when or when not to split a topic into a separate article. As noted before, you and I can't seem to come to an agreement on such matters. But I'll go ahead and state the following: As shown above, I obviously agree with you that WP:Systematic bias has led the article to be in its current state. But I still don't think that moving the article to a United States-centric title is the solution. If the literature on campus rape is mostly about the United States, then it's only natural that a Wikipedia campus rape article is going to be mostly about the United States. That is not a WP:Undue weight violation; that is in accordance with WP:Undue weight. That also obviously doesn't mean that the article should only be about the United States. If a topic has significantly less coverage in other countries, then we are supposed to note that in the one article, not create a WP:Spinout article to cover that significantly less coverage. Unless, of course, the WP:Spinout article can flourish beyond a WP:Stub. And if it can flourish beyond a WP:Stub, that is when it is valid to employ WP:Spinout. There are a lot of concepts on Wikipedia that are United States-centric because of the specific literature on that topic. The Hookup culture article, for example, is United States-centric because the term hookup culture is United States-centric. And the fact that what an article covers can be a matter of what the sources in general cover is why Template:Globalize/US states, in part, "This tag should only be applied to articles where global perspectives are reasonably believed to exist (e.g., that people in China have a different view about an idea or situation than people in Germany or South Africa). If additional reliable sources for a worldwide view cannot be found after a reasonable search, this tag may be removed." The template states nothing about creating false balance; see WP:GEVAL and WP:BALANCE. Flyer22 (talk) 05:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't term it as systemic bias. The literature and awareness of campus rape is primarily a US issue. The article, started 4 years ago reflects that. Changing the title would properly capture that reality. However, I personally am open to expanding the article if there's enough quality source material out there. But when I did a scan of of the online literature, I could not find it. A cross tabulation of words in Google books as you have does not apply. You are free to find material for this article, or start another article. So as they say, you might want to fish or cut bait.Mattnad (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
It is a systemic bias issue because the article has treated campus rape as though it is only (the word only being the keyword) a United States matter. It obviously is not only a United States matter. Well, it's obvious to anyone with common sense. Stating that "[t]he article, started 4 years ago reflects that" is a poor justification for the state of the article. Have you not read what WP:Systemic bias is? It's when people treat a topic as though that topic only happens in their country. The Prison rape article is also currently only about the United States, even though prison rape obviously happens all over the world and that article can very much be expanded beyond prison rape in the United States. And to top it off, there is a Prison rape in the United States article. If you looked for non-United States campus rape information, it is my assumption that you did not look well enough. For example, this Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus 2007 NYU Press source found on Google Books, page 4, states, "American campus-style gang rapes also occur in other countries; most notable is the high-profile case reported at Waseda University in Tokyo. Between 2001 and 2003 a leader of a university club and other members used strong alcoholic drinks to intoxicate their victims to the point of unconsciousness, whereupon they were raped on various occasions by up to a dozen members of the club. The explanation given was that rape created solidarity among members and those who did not participate in the gang rapes were not members (Yumi Wijers-Hasegawa, The Japan Times, Nov. 3, 2004)." Campus gang rape is obviously still campus rape, and this type of information belongs in the Campus rape article. And before you assert that the data is too old, as you, in the "False Title, Gross Misuse of Statistics" section above, have essentially asserted of anything not reflecting 2014 Bureau of Justice Statistics on campus rape, which is a single United States source, I will go ahead and state, "No, it is not. It is documenting the fact that campus rapes do not only happen in the United States, and is naming a notable non-United States campus rape case." Whether regular Google or Google Books, there are WP:Reliable sources pertaining to non-United States campus rape data. WP:PAYWALL (or WP:SOURCEACCESS) excuses only go so far. Flyer22 (talk) 02:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
@Dekimasu: I think they are suggesting a content fork, with one article for the USA and one article for "rest of world." This article is too short for a split to be useful, so that's not really a great idea at this point. A couple of other editors have made the new claim that "campus rape" is a US-only topic, a claim of which I am quite skeptical. If the claim was actually supportable by reliable sources, that information should be added to the article and no move is necessary to disambiguate the topic - for example, we have Underground railroad not Underground railroad of the United States; and National Football League not National Football League in the United States. In short, every "support" !vote thus far has exhibited an underlying misunderstanding of the criteria that would actually support an article move. VQuakr (talk) 21:28, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
Exactly, VQuakr!! And if we do move the article, the term campus rape is still supposed to redirect to this article? That's an improvement, how? Dekimasu, when closing this discussion, I ask that you keep in mind that such discussions are not supposed to be about the number of votes. WP:Consensus should be about the weight of the arguments. The move votes are lacking weight. It seems that you already know all of this, though. Flyer22 (talk) 02:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
I don't think this more than an anecdotal topic in other countries. The focus on the campus is a political movement in the US. We don't have an article on farm rape, or workplace rape even though rapes happen there too. 2600:1001:B12D:3359:8583:1B7D:FAF0:BE97 (talk) 21:02, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
And if this is not "more than an anecdotal topic in other countries," that is no reason to move the article title; I made that perfectly clear in my "05:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)" post above. VQuakr is the only other voter here thus far who seems to understand when an article move should happen. Flyer22 (talk) 02:41, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
If it were a phenomenon unique to the U.S. or at least uniquely termed "campus rape", then the article should stay at the current title like the example of underground railroad given above. I agree that (probably) the "focus on the campus is a political movement in the US" and the topic is therefore far more important there. However, campus rape does exist in other countries and the current title implies that the article deals with the topic from a worldwide perspective. A rename would rectify this. A rename also might encourage addition of non-U.S. content. Any editor could create a new non-U.S.-centric stub article to draw attention to the lack of such material. —  AjaxSmack  03:25, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
Considering that there have not yet been any more opinions expressed since your "03:25, 24 December 2014 (UTC)" comment, I'll go ahead and state that my "05:13, 23 December 2014 (UTC)" comment above is pretty much a reply to that response. Titling the article Campus rape in the United States is unneeded and is not going to help a thing. The Prison rape and Prison rape in the United States articles are a current example of that, and that topic (prison rape) has a lot more that can be covered about rape in other countries than what is available regarding campus rape in other countries. In other words, retitling an article does not help combat WP:Systemic bias. On the English Wikipedia, for years I've seen that WP:Systemic bias is usually United States-centric or United Kingdom-centric; it's similar to how on other language Wikipedias, WP:Systemic bias exists relating to the cultures that use those languages. VQuakr and I have been clear above that title change remedies in cases such as this one are not remedies at all. If this article is moved to Campus rape in the United States, well, that's one more WP:Requested move mistake by Wikipedia. But I've clearly stated my piece on the matter. Flyer22 (talk) 22:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment There are some big national and cultural differences which mean the term doesn't probably even exist in many countries. Atleast where I live (a continental European country), campuses do not have student housing, they do not have any sort of "independent area status" or own rules so the term doesn't really make much sense. Also, some universities simply have faculties in ordinary buildings in the city centre. Atleast the article should make clear the information in it is just about the United States. --Pudeo' 03:58, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
The same can be said in some places in the United States. It depends on the school. Some colleges are commuter schools, and others just have the students live in off-campus apartments. Many do have campus housing, though. DGAgainstDV (talk) 04:42, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. It's better to have a stub-article on worldwide campus rape clearly indicating the subject is missing coverage in WP rather than pretending the present article will become globalized anytime soon. Fgnievinski (talk) 00:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
Given what VQuakr and I stated above, Fgnievinski (talk · contribs), how is your rationale a solution? And Nblund (talk · contribs), since you added this non-United States material, perhaps you have something to state on this move discussion? Flyer22 (talk) 04:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Calidum and Flyer22. No one is limiting this article to only American issues, and there is plenty to add re: other countries per Flyer22. There is no need to cut off or inhibit reportage of other campus rape; that in itself is an anti-female WP:SYSTEMICBIAS. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose It definitely happens outside the US. I'm currently working on adding some material to include the public discussion of the topic in the UK and Canada, and some anecdotal cases from several other countries. My initial read from these materials is that this is something that is less studied and/or discussed outside the US, but that the discussion that does exist more or less parallels the research here. In fact, most of the non-US research is approached from an explicitly comparative perspective (ex: "Sexual Coercion among University Students: A Comparison of the United States and Sweden"), and most of the public discussions and protests appear to be modeled on the American anti-rape student movement. As a result, "campus rape (non-US) entry" would end up covering a lot of the same ground in terms of the causes, consequences, and prevalence of rape & sex assault among college students, and would present the issue in a way that wouldn't accurately reflect the current state of affairs. Nblund (talk) 15:52, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Schwartz-Leggett Study

I haven't been able to get the full text of the Schwartz-Leggett study cited in this article, but the abstract available at http://vaw.sagepub.com/content/5/3/251.abstract does not seem consistent with the claim that it replicated the Koss study with a reworded alcohol question. The abstract seems to say that the study considered whether the victims of alcohol-induced rape are as emotionally traumatized as the victims of forcible rape (and concluded that they are), not that it examined the prevalence of rape. Furthermore, the numbers given in the abstract, that 65 rape victims were identified from a sample of 388 college seniors, would give a prevalence significantly less than 1 in 4. Can anyone document exactly what the study found that corroborates the 1 in 4 statistic? If not, then I'd like to suggest that this claim be removed from the Wikipedia article. DGAgainstDV (talk) 00:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The information seems to be borne out by a reprinting of the study here. I've added some more information into the article. CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 07:17, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
I don't see it. The Google Books reprinting leaves out a few pages, but what's there seems to give 65 out of 388, not 1 in 4. Am I missing something? If so, can you point me to a specific page? DGAgainstDV (talk) 12:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Given that this claim is of questionable accuracy and no one has been able to provide documentation to verify it, I will be removing the sentence from the article. DGAgainstDV (talk) 00:30, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
I have access to this article: the 65/388 gives a prevalence of rape of 16.7%, which is consistent with Koss' statistic of 15.4% for women who experienced completed rape while in college. The 1 in 4 stat is a measure of completed+attempted. I've put this point back in the entry. Nblund (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

How to handle sources for prevalence and incidence for rates of assault in Campus rape article

A new editor has been making wholesale changes to the Campus rape article. As part the editors approach, the editor has chosen to de-emphasize current US government surveys and statistics, including a very recent Department of Justice report and give equal footing to studies that sometimes older, less rigorous, narrower in sample quality, or less well known.

Here's a comparison between the previous approach which was very specific, and the current favored by the recent editor.

Given there is a lot of debate between which statistics to present, should we emphasize recent, government statistics on the problem, or treat any and all studies or conclusions equally (regardless of quality, age, scope) as is being done in the current article.15:05, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

There's still plenty of work needed on this entry, but I think the problem with emphasizing the NCVS results is fairly clear cut.
For clarity, the contentious article is here. It uses aggregated data from the 1995-2013 National Crime Victimization Surveys. The NCVS findings represent an outlier estimate which is substantially lower than the rate of rape/assault found in other studies. The surveys use a methodology for measuring rape that differs significantly from the methods used by most researchers, and which is widely seen as resulting in systematic under-estimates of sexual violence. Some important points (which could be reflected in the entry) are:
  • 1. There is no consensus among researchers regarding a single best study or best methodology. I would call this view universal (For discusion see: here, here, here).
  • 2. A significant number of researchers hold that the NCVS approach under-estimates rape and sexual assault. This view is supported, most notably, by the findings of a panel convened by the Bureau of Justice Statistics itself, which concluded "that it is likely that rape and sexual assault are undercounted in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)" (quoted from abstract here).
  • 3. Though there is no consensus on a best alternative method, there is, according to Krebs (2014), a building consensus "for using self-administered survey instruments and behaviorally specific questions". This strategy is used in every study cited on the current entry except the National Crime Victimization Surveys.
  • 4. The belief that the NCVS offers the best estimate is not supported by any citation, and appears to be a minority viewpoint at best. If that is going to be a guiding assumption for the structure of the article, I think it needs some reputable support at a minimum.
Valid critiques of other studies are obviously worth mentioning, but emphasizing the results of the NCVS gives undue weight to results which are highly contested by researchers in the field. Nblund (talk) 22:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
You've completely dodged the core question of whether we should give all studies, particularly those of questionable methodology or ancient data, or tiny sample equal weight with a government led national survey that asked millions of people every year their experiences with crime.
For instance, you just happened to remove the comments from one of the authors of the CSA that explicitly said in no way can it be used to represent an national statistic since it covered only two colleges for a limited period of time. Koss is circa 1985 - 30 years ago, but you treat it like it's current despite overall declines in sexual assault. Likewise, you inserted the views from a source that used a tiny sample to argue the rates are over 30%, that the crime was the most common on campuses, and then fought to keep it. No survey is perfect, but anyone who does survey design prefers a large sample, tracks rates over time (longitudinal), with clear questions (ie, were you raped or sexually assaulted) which the other surveys you have given equal weight do not. Mattnad (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
I think the NPOV policy is that viewpoints should be weighted according to their representation among reliable sources. My read on the existing scholarship is that a clear majority of experts see fundamental flaws in the NCVS methodology, but that there is no consensus on the best alternate approach and no certainty about the true prevalence or incidence. The discussion should reflect this. Nblund (talk) 16:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment- This is not a very useful RFC. That brief and neutral statement of the issue that WP:RFC recommends actually serves a purpose. What you have written lacks neutrality and brevity. You want other users to pick thru a big long mess and side with you because this user is new it seems. It really seems the smarter answer would be for everyone that passes by this to simply ignore this RFC IMO.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:35, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
The RFC is a lot shorter than wading through all the minutia of the various studies. However, I'm open to your spending the time to read the various incarnations of the article and come up with the approach you see fit.Mattnad (talk) 17:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
No wading. I'm going to ignore it as suggested above that others should. This is a request for comment not a demand for comment. Your overall lack of neutrality reads as an attack here in the opening of this rfc. So what if he's a new user or has made bold changes to the article? Discuss the content not the creator. Also asking me to choose between to versions is also a bit ridiculous. If you can clearly discuss the problem people can look at it and see if you are right. Then they can discuss possible solutions. You see a problem but it seems this user also see's a problem. I wouldn't expect to be given a special credence because you have been here longer. This RFC is malformed.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 04:06, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, your impressive anger and lack of civility is noted.Mattnad (talk) 16:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
There's no anger or incivility at all. It's direct and concise. I'm not here to take part in a fight but to help resolve a dispute. A RFC is a means of ending a dispute not a means of winning a fight. Your opening statement lacks neutrality and focuses more on the user who put it there than the actual content. It seems you are here to win a fight. That is simply a waste of the communities time. The community, many of whom would be sent a request by a bot, who would come here to help improve the content but not help you or whom ever the new user is win a fight. I encourage you to read WP:RFC and drop the battleground routine.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The original RFC could use a little clarification, but I welcome additional comments regarding the prevalence/incidence sub-section -- especially regarding the appropriate level of detail. We have several studies that use slightly different approaches to sampling, administration, and measurement. Is it appropriate to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each, or is this too specific for this entry? Nblund (talk) 16:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment- I think it is good that the article describes numerous studies and summarizes them in detail. Your concern about de-emphasizing one or more studies which you believe deserve more weight than others. The descriptions of the studies should help readers decide how much weight to give them. For example, the 30 year old study may not be the most relevant to prevalence rates today, but it is relevant to trends and may have other value for readers trying to learn more. If you feel more weight should be given to something, I suggest adding material rather than deleting material.–GodBlessYou2 (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
I've avoided edit wars with Nblund, but he or she has wholesale deleted a lot of content that does not match his or her view of things. I'm a professional in the space of survey design, analytics, and weighting. This article as it now stands is a propaganda piece. There are ample discussions earlier on the talk page about problematic sources that have been ignored by this single issue editor. However based on uphelful comments from other editors (not you), I'm withdrawing. No point in trying to improve this article given. It will be confusing and poorly written based on the current direction.Mattnad (talk) 16:21, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Well, I bristle a little at the poorly written comment, but I agree that this entry is confusing and needs work, and I hope you'll apply some of that expertise in doing so. I'm certainly not opposed to working with you or compromising on these issues. As far as I can tell, the main sticking point is the placement of the NCVS. Your personal view appears to be that the NCVS represents the best measure of campus rape incidence, but I don't see that personal view reflected in the relevant literature. If you have citations for that viewpoint, please, put them in the entry and we can move forward.
As a point of fact: I don't think very much substantive content has actually been deleted -- if you compare the earlier version with the current one, the major differences are the addition of material on the CSA, the inclusion of critiques of the NCVS, and the re-structuring of the "prevalence" section to give a balanced treatment to the various studies. Nblund (talk) 16:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The NCHERM section gives undue weight to criticism and false allegations

I'm confused as to how this section came to be written in a way that overlooks most of the content in NCHERM's letter. Their statement addresses all parties within the campus hearing process, numerous organizations, and offers praise and criticism in nearly equal amounts. The section here addresses only the portion of the letter dealing with false accusations against male students, and the only initiative mentioned is FIRE. The section in its current form makes it seem as if NCHERM is taking sides against these initiatives, and admonishing the changes proposed by Obama. This is clearly an inaccurate representation of NCHERM's statements. Leaving the bulk of the letter ignored and neglecting to mention anything but the lone topic of false accusations is against policy. Please see WP:NPOV. Thanks. Ongepotchket (talk) 22:34, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I'll second this. While we're on it: is NCHERM's position really important enough to warrant its own sub-heading? I don't ask as a rhetorical question, I really don't know. I gather from some Googling that Sokolow is an important figure in some circles, but the sub-section doesn't really hint at who the NCHERM are or what they do, and so it comes off as a non-sequitur.
In general the discussion in sections following the "Dear Colleague" letter give the impression that responses were uniformly negative -- which I don't think is reflective of reality. Maybe a few more voices could be added. Nblund (talk) 23:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Claims of POV

An editor is claiming POV. Here's a direct quote from the "Some scholars believe that the failure of women to define a victimization as a rape calls into question whether researchers have truly measured the crime of rape." - page 22 of the cited document. As a personal editorial point, it would seem that they feel women cannot say for themselves whether or not they have been assaulted, even when responding to an anonymous survey.146.1.1.3 (talk) 19:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The next sentences are:
"Others suggest, however, that the true prevalence of rape is best measured by carefully worded questions on victimization surveys, such as NCWSV.[28] Women may not define a victimization as a rape for many reasons (such as embarrassment, not clearly understanding the legal definition of the term, or not wanting to define someone they know who victimized them as a rapist) or because others blame them for their sexual assault.[29] Which of these reasons is more or less correct cannot be definitively substantiated here because little systematic research has examined why women do or do not define as a rape an incident that has met the researcher's criteria for a rape."
The authors of the study are citing a dispute, not taking a side on it. The statement in question offers no insight in to who raised a concern about the validity of this approach, and its pretty clear where they stand: Bonnie Fisher, the lead researcher, writes in another analysis of this study:
"First, the use of behaviorally specific questions cannot be overemphasized, not necessarily because they produce larger estimates of rape but because they use words and phrases that describe to the respondent exactly what behavior is being measured. Using behaviorally specific screen questions appears to cue more women to recall what they experienced. The use of behaviorally specific questions is not a panacea for addressing measurement error associated with estimating rape (and other forms of victimization), but it is a step forward in understanding how question wording affects self-report survey responses" (p. 143)
The conversation about whether or not behaviorally specific questions are valid is a conversation worth mentioning, but its not a critique that is unique to any one of these studies, and its a definite minority viewpoint. Regardless, the citation of some unspecified "concerns" being raised by unspecified others is a fairly clear-cut instance of a POV being inserted without attribution see: Manual of Style: Words to Watch — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 20:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
You know for a "new" user, you certainly know an awful lot about wikipedia rules. Hmm..... At any rate, it's in a reliable source and we have your original research comment here that it's a minority viewpoint. The fact that women do not think they've been raped and are still characterized as being raped is a serious issue from any perspective. Put the counterpoint, but we can leave the source. You also completely removed the 48.8% stat till I reverted you. What's that about? Mattnad (talk) 20:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
What source are you talking about? The statement that it "raised concerns about the accuracy of indirect questions used in these types of surveys" is not a view supported by the authors of the study or by any other currently included citation. Its an attribution of doubt to unspecified "others". If you want to include that discussion, it needs to have a reference to someone actually making that argument.
The majority viewpoint statement isn't original research, its based on review articles that I've cited previously on the talk page. None of the studies we currently listed, including the NCVS, attempts to measure rape by solely asking women if they've ever been raped. I removed the entire POV sentence -- I think the stat is worth discussing, but it needs context or its not really helpful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 21:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

FBI stats

Regarding the addition of FBI stats on school assaults: the 259 number is the number of individuals who were arrested for forcible rape in the 5 year period, it isn't a measure of incidents, or even a measure of reported incidents. Further, these data represent all schools: elementary, secondary, and colleges. They are only indicative of assaults that are voluntarily reported to law enforcement agencies, by law enforcement, and the authors caution that "the study dataset is not nationally representative, readers should be cautious in attempting to generalize the findings.".

I think its actually a good idea to talk about how the amount of sexual violence reported on the UCR and Clery Act disclosures differ from the levels found by surveys, but only as long as they include the caveat (which is pretty universally acknowledged) that rape and sexual violence are very unlikely to be reported to police and that the national crime reporting systems are spotty at best. Nblund (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just because you don't like it, does not make it an unreliable source. FBI report is understood to be a subset, since not all rapes are reported. But you are whitewashing in favor of maximizing the rates, and minimizing reliable sources that go against your massive POV. As for generalizing the findings, nobody has done that, except for you in the sources you use. 146.1.1.3 (talk) 20:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This statement "A 5-Year FBI crime study from 2000 to 2004 indicated very low rates of forcible rape and sodomy: 259 instances of forcible rape and 104 instances of forcible sodomy among female and male students over the 5-year period." Is indisputably false. The stat is a measure of arrests at all schools (elementary, secondary, and colleges) that were reported to the UCR for one subset of sexual violence. It isn't a report of incidents, its not a report of reported incidents, its a report of arrests. I think we can sideline the discussion of whether these stats are reliable, because right now they're simply being presented inaccurately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 20:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

NBLUND is correct that it's not just for campus rapes/assaults. However it does include those. So if anything, the anon IP has overstated the number of arrests(?) (or is it reports?) on college campuses as represented by the FBI link. I need to check the source myself since I stepped away from this mess only to come back to an edit war. I think it's OK to to include the FBI stats with caveats that a) it does not capture unreported / unarrested rates, and b) it's for all students include younger than college aged. At a minimum, it's useful to show the gap between surveyed rates and law enforcement reports.Mattnad (talk) 20:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
How is it useful to include an FBI count of the number of arrests for violent rape at an unspecified number of schools and colleges?
These stats represent the number of arrests reported only by those departments that report data to the UCR. Schools aren't required to do this, and the report gives no insight in to how many actually do. Its a raw count of arrests and we have no idea what the base population of college students is -- so its not even useful as a generalizable estimate.
I'm all for including a discussion of the Clery Act disclosures (which are accounts of incidents which colleges are legally required to report) as a part of the prevalence discussion, particularly as a lead-in to the discussion of measuring crime through surveys rather than through incident reports. This number, however, is unhelpful at best at patently misleading at worst. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 21:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
I got around to the FBI report. It is arrests, so it's a bit of strange slice to present. Clery is a better source. Mattnad (talk) 23:14, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding this : the UCR only covers crimes reported to law enforcement agencies that are UCR participants, its voluntary and doesn't cover all schools or even all reported rapes. It inappropriate to use full enrollment numbers to calculate a rate of rape.

I'm working up a discussion of numbers based on reported incidents for the prevalence sub-section, but I think presenting crime reports without context (or with inaccurate context) does more harm than good. There is wide agreement that rape is generally not reported to police or authorities, and the UCR and Clery Act stats are useful for demonstrating this fact, but they are misleading if presented without adequate caveats. 

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 19:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
You don't seem to have an issue quoting a book, inaccessible to nearly all readers, that offers a high end of 35% of women being sexually assaulted with no context whatsoever. Double standard? What was the source of the 35%? Where was is measured, when, how? We have a book that's not in my public library system, that makes a claim, that cannot be easily verified, but it's fine by you? Mattnad (talk) 19:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The statement about the FBI stats isn't even an accurate representation of the findings of the source: it is not a measure of all reported rapes, and it is not a measure that includes the entire population of college students in 2013.
The entry does include a rather lengthy discussion of the uncertainties and caveats about the findings related to rape and sexual assault prevalence -- it doesn't present any finding as authoritative, and discusses the wide range of estimates and the current lack of consensus. This is not what was done with the FBI stat.
The citation in question is from a peer reviewed journal article by a respected expert, not a book. I believe these are preferred sources for wikipedia entries. That said: I actually agree that they are a bit vague on the exact source of the 35% figure, but I can actually find higher numbers: a 1995 study at a single university reported that 42.8% of women experienced some form of sexual aggression. I think the alternative to using a citation would be to report the range findings of several of the larger studies and more prominent studies (the Harvard College Alcohol Study and the CSA being the main ones), but these aren't going to be all that different from the 8-35% figure. The average finding among these studies appears to be a prevalence ranging from 10% to 30%.
Your approach with the "journal" creates a verifiability problem, and it's not even consistent with the rest of the article that cites major studies. I'm sure we could cherry pick lots of non-notable work that's all over the place. I'm sure there are some people who say it's even higher that are out there depending on the definitions (ie, catcalling as sexual assault in some circles).Mattnad (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't know why journal is in scare quotes, but yes, it actually is from a journal article, and no, the fact that you can't access it doesn't mean that there is a verifiability problem. There are specific guidelines against rejecting sources on the grounds that they are inaccessible to you personally (see: Verifiability:Access to Sources
It seems reasonable to offer an inclusive range of estimates and then discuss the most prominent findings. I really don't see how its cherry-picking to discuss relevant estimates from peer reviewed journals. The rest of the article cites major studies, but only two of the ones discussed report the multi-year prevalence for college attendees: the Koss study and the CSA. The CSA reports 20% for all sexual assault, Koss reports somewhere in the 40% range. Neither estimate includes "cat-calling", though Koss does include incidents that happened since age 14. Would you prefer we report that as the range? It certainly doesn't make sense to report none of those findings. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 21:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Your proposition that a review article is better is not necessarily true. Verifiability is important, and where there's no context, a statistic like that (or even higher), puts it down on the quality scale. As you have noted, we have no clue where that 35% come from, and it's an outlier. I'll add that the lower range of 8% is in conflict with the BJS which at 0.6% incidence per year for sexual assault indicated that the prevalence is lower (basic math for the typical 4-5 year student period). Even if every year a completely different student experiences an event, that get you to a max of 3%. Why do you prefer to use that source anyway given it's unknown what they are talking about, and we have expansive content later in the article citing mainstream and highly cited studies?Mattnad (talk) 21:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
The BJS stats don't purport to estimate a four-year prevalence - they estimate a 1 year incidence, and this result is also an outlier. I don't prefer a particular source, and I don't think its necessarily "better" than any other, but you haven't really proposed any alternative. An inclusive range of estimates is useful because it gives a general sense of where the research stands. Its doesn't really conflict with any of the specific studies mentioned: if we make that assessment based only on the sources discussed in the entry, the range is from 20% (CSA) to 54% (Koss) for all sexual victimization, and between 10% (CSA) and 27%(Koss) for rape and attempted rape. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nblund (talk • contribs) 23:48, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
Why not just find a source that says 100%? No need to qualify it, what they are measuring, how they measure etc. My read of your approach is you excise or try to minimize estimates that are on the lower end that are accessible and understandable to the reader in favor of those that are unexplained but very large (Koss at 54%). But this artiel is not about any form of sexual victimization. It's about "Campus rape". The sloppiness of your approach is a serious problem and Violates NPOV. You intentionally are blurring the lines. There are articles already on sexual assault/victimization in wikipedia.Mattnad (talk) 00:16, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Because those estimates don't exist. Multiple peer reviewed studies spanning several decades, however, do find rates at or around the levels reported by Koss et. al. The discussion of the range of estimates is my best attempt to mirror those discussions found in peer-reviewed academic journals, its not based on my personal point of view. It includes both a low-end estimate (the result of the NCVS) and a high end one (Koss and others). Neither the low-end estimate nor the high end are presented as authoritative, but are meant to demonstrate the wide range of findings and both the upper and lower limits of plausible estimates. Like many Wikipedia subsections, this one begins with a general summary of the issue, then moves in to a more specific discussion. The context for these results are discussed later in the section. I think the discussion remains imperfect, but I don't see you presenting an evidence-based case for removing reliably sourced information.Nblund (talk) 04:31, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
I've noted a tendency by some to lower the bar for what constitutes sexual assault, coupled with the conflation of minor offenses with major offenses. That's fine for talking points, but not helpful on an article that is about Campus Rape. When there's research that tries to be specific based on "reported rates to officials", or asking direct questions, there's a concerted effort by your suppress that information. So for instance, you have pointed out possible deficiencies with the BJS study (fair enough), but inserted other sources that state much higher rates without offering even a single shred of background on those numbers (ie, Koss at 54%). What portion of that 54% meets the criminal definition of rape? What are the types of sexual assault and how are they defined, and the rates of each? Does that 54% represent women and men, or just women? Who is being measured and how? When was this measured and over what period of time? You are full of beans when it comes to removing published FBI reports that at least indicate how they derive their numbers, but Koss escapes the same level of scrutiny.Mattnad (talk) 17:43, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm really not clear on what your complaint is here: did you want the FBI stats included? Do you want the range of prevalence estimates removed entirely? Why or why not? I hear you saying you disagree with my approach and doubt my objectivity, but its not clear what you are proposing as an alternative.

The 54% figure hasn't been inserted in to the entry -- I used the range of estimates for completed rapes and attempted rapes because those measures are more readily comparable across studies. I see you making a case for including more context, and I'm all for it -- but I don't see a case for removing reliable, widely cited, material. Breakdown from the Koss studiy (percentages are listed for the highest form of sexual victimization an individual experienced):

Sexual contact (14.4%) Sexual coercion (11.9%) attempted rape (11.9%) rape (15.4%)

The definition of "rape" is written to conform closely with the legal definition of the term. The definition of "sexual coercion" and "sexual contact" includes instances intercourse or sexual contact resulting from verbal pressure, the misuse of authority, and physical threats -- some of which are illegal, and some of which are not. The dominant paradigm for this research sees sexual violence as existing on a continuum ranging from "low level" and pervasive forms of sexual aggression (such as sexual harassment) to more extreme forms (like rape). This perspective sees these low level forms of aggression as related connected to more severe forms of sexual violence, and with deleterious public health and civil rights outcomes for women. I gather from your statements here that you disagree with that view, but your own personal perspective on what constitutes a sufficiently "severe" form of sexual aggression isn't really germane to the discussion. Inclusive stats need to be qualified, defined, and contextualized, but understanding the "minor" forms of sexual victimization is a major part of the research. Nblund (talk) 20:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The "research" varies in definition of rape, and sexual assault, and whether we give equal credence to rates where the victim identifies the incident as a crime, vs. the researcher defining it as crime when the victim does not. I'm OK with the full range, but it's important to identify these differences. The reason I think the NCVS is a cleaner read on what the women and men themselves interpret, which is very important to the broader debate that spawned this article. A person in long-term, happy relationship who has drunk sex with their partner can be characterized as a rape victim even when they willingly gave consent at the time. That is how part of the research approaches the measurement of rape, but we need to call that out if we're going to put their stats in this article.Mattnad (talk) 15:36, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
I will add that much of what you wrote about the broader thinking about low forms of agression is better for other articles that address in detail the socio-policial thinking. This article is about one very specific area. You can add main-article call-outs as needed.Mattnad (talk) 15:44, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Differences in definition account for a portion of the differences in the estimates. I think that is stated directly in the article as it is, but I'm totally open to adding more if it seems ambiguous.
As for your second point: this is not correct. The NCWSV doesn't ask about rape by intoxication at all, and the wording of the CSA question specifies non-consensual sex in fairly clear terms (it asks about "unwanted sexual contact that happened when you were unable to provide consent or stop what was happening").
Neil Gilbert and Christina Hoff Sommers argued that some ambiguous wording of the Koss survey may have led respondents to misinterpret her questions in a way that might lead them to count consensual sexual experiences as "rape". If I remember right, I think the Gilbert/Sommers critique is already mentioned in the section on Koss -- and, if not, it was a prominent viewpoint that should be presented -- but its not a criticism that's applicable to the later research.
The article is titled "campus rape" -- the research on campus rape (which is cited throughout) treats rape as a severe form of sexual violence that is related to more minor forms of violence. I don't think we need a detailed discussion of the continuum perspective, but the findings on other forms of sexual violence are seen by researchers as relevant to the discussion of rape. Nblund (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
Researchers have a point of view, as does the broader society at large which does not view sexual violence in the same way as some theorists. For instance, the Koss statistic you cited, with 11.9% of sexual assaults categorized as "sexual coercion" is not what society at large consider sexual violence, and is not captured in any laws as such. As an extreme example, the University of Michigan includes withholding sex as form of sexual violence. This exceptional example illustrates my point that we should group findings by how narrowly or broadly they define rape (and some other sexual assaults) first:
  1. reported rates where the victim comes forward (understanding that most do not)
  2. surveys that ask direct questions, using the criminal definition which permit the respondent to self identify as a victim, preferably longitudinal studies like the BJS (which some theorists still feel understates the rate)
  3. other surveys where the researchers use indirect questions, and then define the results however they see fit (eg. Koss) which leads to the highest rates of rape, sexual violence, etc..
To do otherwise, such as providing ranges with no context, muddies the waters, which is more of a political tactic, than one that elucidates the ranges of opinions on the matter.Mattnad (talk) 18:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I think we're in complete agreement about the importance of giving explicit context. As I've mentioned before, I think the discussion of the public health vs. crime perspectives used in the National Research Counsel Report is a good model of how to present this information in a balanced fashion. I don't think the current iteration of the entry fails to provide context for the estimates, but, again, if you feel more is warranted, I'm open to it.

Here are the definitions for the various sources:

  • UCR: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
  • NCVS: “Forced sexual intercourse including both psychological coercion as well as physical force. Forced sexual intercourse means penetration by the offender(s).”
  • CSA: "unwanted sexual penetration (vaginal, anal, oral, or object penetration by an offender) achieved either through physical force, threat of force, or incapacitation of the victim."
  • NCWSV: “Unwanted completed penetration by force or the threat of force. Penetration includes: penile-vaginal, mouth on your genitals, mouth on someone else’s genitals, penile-anal, digital-vaginal, digital-anal, object-vaginal, and object-anal.”

These all more-or-less conform to the criminal and common-sense definitions of “rape” -- and its not clear that the NCVS and UCR definitions are any more restrictive than the NCWSV.

All of the surveys require the researchers to make the final judgement about whether or not a rape occurred: the NCSV uses a two-step process to measure rape. Respondents who answer "yes" to any of the sexual violence items are then asked additional questions about the attack, which survey administrators use to determine whether the act was a rape, sexual assault, or not a sexual attack.

The real distinction between surveys isn't definitions or measurement, but the level of explicitness in the questions. The NCVS doesn’t mention any of the specific sex acts that might constitute a rape:

...has anyone attacked or threatened you in any of these ways:… (e) any rape, attempted rape, or other type of sexual attack;

And a follow up:

...have you been forced or coerced to engage in unwanted sexual activity by (a) someone you didn’t know before, (b) a casual acquaintance? OR (c) someone you know well?

"Rape", "sexual attack", and "forced and coerced" are never defined or specified. The NCWSV, by contrasts, is very explicit:

"Since school began in fall 1996, has anyone made you have sexual intercourse by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you? Just so there is no mistake, by intercourse I mean putting a penis in your vagina."

These specific behavioral definitions appear to be the main source of variations. I don't think there's really any reading of that question that would constitute anything other than a rape, but the estimate is substantially higher anyway Nblund (talk) 02:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Carmody & Washington

Does anyone have access to the study Rape Myth Acceptance Among College Women: The Impact of Race and Prior Victimization? It's used as a source for this statement: Acceptance of rape myths -- prejudicial and stereotyped beliefs about rape and situations surrounding rape such as the belief that "only promiscuous women get raped" or that "women ask for it" -- are correlated with self reported past sexual aggression and with self-reported willingness to commit rape in the future among men. This seems a tad unlikely, since the study focuses on rape myth acceptance among college women, but I can't find a copy anywhere handy to check. Could someone perhaps quote the relevant paragraph? GoldenRing (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

That's my bad. I've replaced it with a citation for a review article that does cite these findings. Here are relevant quotes:
"The behavioral intention most frequently examined in the rape myth literature is the self-reported likelihood of raping... such studies have generally reported that self-described likelihood of raping is associated with higher RMA [Rape Myth Acceptance]...Considerable research has examined the relationship between RMA and self-reported sexually aggressive behavior. Several studies have indicated a significant relationship between RMA and sexually aggressive behavior (p.151)" Nblund (talk) 16:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

multiple: recent edits

Regarding this:

  • 1. This and this are minor edits to improve the flow and cohesion. The aren't removing content, but they do place statements in a logical order. "Some studies" is also kind of a weasel word -- its just one study.
  • 2. Thisis not correct: the 19% stat is not a projection, its an estimate. I think the author confused the CSA with the NCWSVS, which did use an annual incidence rate to make a projection about a 4-year prevalence.
Fair enough.
  • 3. This statement doesn't appear to be supported by any citation -- it looks like a statement of the editor's POV. At a minimum, it needs a citation, and a little bit more clarity (eg: "more than had ever been observed" by who?)
There is a citation at the end, and I quote "As with the UCR, the CDC, the CSA, and the Clery Act use differing defini- tions of sexual assault, making reconciliation of the results difficult. Beyond those definitional inconsistencies, one major differ- ence between the Clery Act, CSA, and CDC data is that the CDC and CSA include unreported sexual assaults. Nonetheless, the underreporting rate of sexual assault needed to explain the dis- crepancy would far exceed any level that had ever been observed."
  • 4. This (repeated here) argument is attributed to "Sommers and others", but I can't find anything resembling this argument in the Gilbert article or in the webpage source linked to this statement. Its not clear who made this argument, and it kind of reads like a bare assertion without any supporting evidence.
That was pulled from another wikipedia page with citations (those passed muster), however you ignored Sommers as well. Did you check that source? Probably not, because it's pretty clear on her position. But you took out the entire passage.... why? Are you saying there is no criticism of Koss, and that Sommers citation is wrong too?Mattnad (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
  • 5. This doesn't appear to be supported by the source. The article mentions that the CSA is flawed, but doesn't call it "controversial" and doesn't really offer specific criticism -- overall it seems to imply that the CSA is the best available source. Its also a little misleading to cite a single editorial to evidence a controversy or criticism.
Oh please. Will this do? [1].Mattnad (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
  • 6. This article discusses the public confusion resulting from the intermingling of rape and sexual assault, its placement in that portion of the wiki entry gives the impression that the "confusion" is actually causing the differences in the estimates. That isn't an argument supported by the citation.
That's a matter of debate I suppose. The article is all about how different studies come up with different estimates, using different definitions. You claim it's out of context. I think it's representative of the confusion.Mattnad (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Now, just to make sure we're all on the same page here, I just wanted to do a COI check. Since you edit only one article on Wikipedia and have a certain POV, do you have any personal or professional affiliation with victims rights advocacy? If you do, you should disclose that.Mattnad (talk) 17:46, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

People really aren't obliged to disclose personal affiliations under any COI policy, and this sort of personal attack is just wildly inappropriate. I don't have any COI, nor do any of these edits constitute a violation of NPOV. I think this policy should be guiding our discussion.

  • 3. And its clear from that quote that the author is comparing the Clery Act and UCR data to the CSA and CDC findings, there's no mention of the NCVS at all.
  • 4. I didn't find the statement anywhere in Sommer's work either, but I didn't do an exhaustive search. Perhaps you could provide quote on this end? I'm skeptical, in part, because the Koss study doesn't appear to discuss victimization among men -- it discusses perpetration. Attributing a claim by a single author to unspecified "others" is misleading, and wikipedia is not a reliable source even if another article includes its own citations. What, specifically, does Sommers say, and what supporting evidence does she provide?
  • 5. I think the page makes it abundantly clear that there is some disagreement about the findings. As I've pointed out repeatedly: all of these studies are disputed and flawed in one way or another, and singling out just one as "controversial" is misleading. Can't all of these studies (NCVS included) be branded controversial on one basis or another?
  • 6. I don't really think it is debatable: the relevant quote in the article is clearly discussing how the estimates from these studies are reported to the general public. Quote: "'When you intermingle the words sexual assault and rape, that's when you open yourself up to issues where you need to be clear what your are reporting and what you are not reporting,' Foubert says." There is nothing in this article suggesting that confusion accounts for the variation in the estimates themselves.

Nblund (talk) 18:55, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

The COI policy does require that you disclose your affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive compensation (it's actually in the terms of use), and asking an editor whether they have a COI is not considered a personal attack and is not inappropriate. Kendall-K1 (talk) 23:25, 11 April 2015 (UTC)
Politely asking may be fine, but repeatedly maligning another editors motives (like this: 12 3) does eventually add up to incivility. For the record: I don't have any affiliations with advocacy organizations or any COIs period. I'm certainly not being paid, and I have a hard time seeing how any of the recent edits being discussed here could be construed as advocacy Nblund (talk) 01:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Nblund, you seem to have a lot of experience with wikipedia, and yet this is a very new account that focuses only on one article? When I have seen a highly experienced, "new" editor, it has been instances where an established editor wants to conceal their editing in another area.
As for advocacy, your approach has been to maximize the perception of the problem, giving equal weight to studies that are old, obscure or marginal, and removing criticism of the same. As a perfect example of false equivalency, you just argued that a modern news articles that calls the 1 in 5 stat controversial since all studies are. There's a difference between studies where there's a debate on methodology, and the 1 in 5 that has been cited by politicians and activists to justify significant changes in campus judicial processes. Even if we believe you on the advocacy point, you certainly are not permitting NPOV.Mattnad (talk) 19:10, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
I think the equal weighting issue was something discussed in the RFC you posted earlier and subsequently withdrew. I'm not sure I understand your point regarding labeling the CSA as controversial: there are major methodological critiques of the Koss study, the CSA, the NCVS, the UCR, Clery Act Stats, and the NCWSV, all of which are documented in this entry -- so why is one study or one group of studies controversial while another isn't? Doing so gives the distinct impression that some studies are more contested than others, and I don't think there's any evidence to support that suggestion -- certainly it wasn't to be found in the New York Times Editorial you cited. The use of the term "controversy" in this context seems like it qualifies as a contentious label. As far as NPOV: the standard is due weight, the fact that the CSA findings are frequently cited by policy makers and activists is -- if anything -- a justification for affording it more prominence, not less.
Can I take your not addressing the other issues I mentioned to mean that we are in agreement on those? Nblund (talk) 20:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Material on living persons

These are great contributions, but there are fairly strict standards for including materials on living persons, and including innuendo like this (the statement about "friendly emails", or "vilification") or transcribing accusations made by attorneys (the statement about Sclove "changing stories") are probably not consistent with those guidelines. In general, it seems like the specifics of these cases are tangential to the larger point, and I'm not sure why Sclove or Sulkowicz really need to be named in this context at all.

Nblund (talk) 22:44, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Your selective editing is showing. Both of these women have volunteered themselves to be in the media and have told their sides of the story, and the media has covered it. But you removed the media coverage of the response of the men. That appears contrary to NPOV.
I'm very familiar with the BLP guidelins which permit balanced praise and criticism. You should read up on it (again) before removing items. BLP requires caution, but allows for a point of view provided it's sourced with inline citations. I'll add there's a large wikipedia article on Sulkowicz performance art, and the criticisms and concerns about it. If you disagree, take it up with BLP noticeboard.Mattnad (talk) 23:15, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
The content is too detailed and case specific to be included here. Discussion of back and forth emails between alleged victim/alleged perpetrator doesn't seem appropriate for this overview article. These details more appropriate on articles for the specific cases. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:30, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
And now a new argument. First it was BLP, now it's too much detail. It's a single sentence you're saying is too much? Really? But you have no issue with the several sentences I added on Sulkowitz's art project and the response? Methinks the editor is violating NPOV here.Mattnad (talk) 23:35, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
I never made a BLP argument, that was Nblund; however, in addition to being too detailed for overview article, your edits were worded in a manner that seems to violate NPOV. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 23:43, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
These campaigns are relevant to the topic at hand because they attempted to publicize a systemic problem in the way that colleges adjudicated assaults -- the details of the accusations are not really relevant, and they aren't discussed in the paragraph describing those claims. The accused are parties not named in that section, the citations come from reliable secondary sources, and they stick to verifiable facts.
The paragraph I removed, on the other hand, contains fairly clear instances of POV. Characterizing emails as "very friendly" or claiming that someone was "vilified" in the press is purely a matter of subjective judgement. Further, the BLP guidelines specifically mention that legal briefs are not reliable sources -- they are, literally, advocacy for one party and they generally exclude relevant information as a matter of course. I can take this to the BLP noticeboard, or you can. In the mean time: these statements should probably be left out. Nblund (talk) 23:36, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
And the paragraph you removed is relevant because it explains colleges' difficulty in adjudicating assaults, i.e. "balancing between due process and the expectations of the accusers." I see no better way to illustrate that difficulty than with concrete examples.
On the primary source, I believe all statements are sourced to the secondary source and the primary is only provided as additional reading.
I encourage those eager to revert Mattnad to compare the article before their recent flurry of edits to its current state - much improved. I vote we let them finish. José Antonio Zapato (talk) 23:43, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
The accusation that Sclove "changed her story" cited this article by Cathy Young, but the article doesn't appear to even mention Sclove(edit: the article mentions Sclove, but not the accusation that she changed her story). I think a discussion of the difficulties colleges face in adjudicating sexual assaults is important, but neither the accusations about "friendly emails" nor the allegation that Sclove changed her story had any bearing on the process of adjudication for either of these sexual assault complaints. Nblund (talk) 00:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Statistics

The National Institute of Justice used to source the 10% claim in the "Prevalence and incidence of rape and sexual assault" section of the article actually states that 19% of women experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college. The 10% figure cited is for women who experienced an attempted sexual assault before entering college. The correct 19% claim is on page xiii, while the information on the 10% claim is on page xii. A sockpuppet account (talk) 20:33, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Scope and title of this article

At present, the article is almost entirely about campus rape in the U.S., and there is a note about this at the top of the article. In the U.S., campus rape is fundamentally different than in other countries (AFAIK), because in other countries rape is always considered to be a crime, not an academic offense. My suggestion, then, is that the scope of the article be just for the U.S., and that the article be retitled, e.g. "Campus rape in the United States". If that were done, then article The New Campus Anti-Rape Movement should be merged into it.  EllieTea (talk) 21:30, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

This wasn't the the final word or anything, but FYI: I think the US-centric stuff was discussed fairlyrecently, and I think the consensus at the time was that the article should simply be expanded to include more non-US cases.
Rape is always a crime in the US as well, but colleges are required under federal law to create misconduct policies and conduct their own, separate, investigations to determine whether they have been violated. Advocates in the UK have been pushing similar changes there. There may be a need for some lumping or splitting with the material here, but splitting geographically doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me: the problem and the controversies surrounding it appear to be fairly similar in a number of other countries. Nblund (talk) 15:13, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, there's one small section addressing other countries, but this article is all about the US. There's no good reason I can see to just change the title so its Campus Rape in the US. if someday it becomes a real issue elsewhere, or editors bother to add material on other countries, it can be changed again. We can still move the new campus antirwpe movement into this article. It's a stub as is it now.70.209.97.188 (talk) 21:23, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
If the handling of rape complaints via university hearings is unique to the United States, I agree with the suggested title change and think this uniqueness should be stressed in article. Is this true though? EllieTea (or anyone else) do you have any refs regarding the US being unique in this regard?--BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
I have not been able to find any ref that says the United States is unique. Even The Economist, which is distributed around the world and very highly esteemed—and has published two stories on this—just says that the U.S. has university hearings, but leaves it seemingly implicit that such hearings are unique. So an article about campus rape in the U.S. could describe how the U.S. handles things, but could not explicitly state that the U.S. was unique.
Probably there should be two articles, one general and one for the U.S., with the general article including a short section for the U.S. and wikilinking to the main U.S. article.  EllieTea (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Its clearly an issue elsewhere: a small amount of googling turned up articles detailing sexual assault on campus in Canada,the UK and India. As I see it: there is not enough material here to justify an individual article for each country (ie: campus sexual assault in Canada, Campus sexual assault in India), but there is clearly enough material that it needs to be covered. Nblund (talk) 16:58, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
Campus rape is an issue in many (most?) countries. Thus, having an article devoted to campus rape might well be reasonable. Campus rape in the U.S. is fundamentally different though, as per my original comment. Your prior claim that "Rape is always a crime in the US" is false: there are men in the U.S. who have been found responsible for rape without any involvement of the criminal justice system.  EllieTea (talk) 10:49, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
This is because colleges have different standards of evidence and (in some cases) different definitions of sexual misconduct from those used by the criminal justice system. Rape is absolutely always a crime in this country Nblund (talk) 02:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
False: in the U.S., men have been found responsible for rape and sanctioned by their universities, without any involvement of the criminal justice system.  EllieTea (talk) 04:13, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
{{citation needed}} Jcmcc (Talk) 05:50, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
This doesn't mean that rape isn't against the law. Schools are required under title IX to perform investigations of sexual assault complaints. In some cases, women file complaints with the university but elect not to pursue criminal charges, in others, police decline to press charges but the university does. Nevertheless, rape is a crime. Always.

...police investigations or reports are not determinative of whether sexual harassment or violence violates Title IX. Conduct may constitute unlawful sexual harassment under Title IX even if the police do not have sufficient evidence of a criminal violation. In addition, a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual violence does not relieve the school of its duty under Title IX to resolve complaints promptly and equitably.

(link)
  • Comment: This article as it stands now, and as it has been since inception, primarily about the United States. The RFC above reflects that. In defense of keeping it global, a few editors wrote of what the article could be, if, and only if, someone added more content about other places. But the fact of the matter is that it hasn't happened except for a few minor references to other countries. This is not to say that rapes don't happen elsewhere on campuses. Rather, THIS article is about the United States. There is a reason for that - in other countries, there isn't the same contention and research that it is a unique problem to campuses. Some editors have mentioned that it could become more prominent outside the US. And yet, that tag has been on the article for months, and we really have seen very little effort to rectify the imbalance. Why? Well, nobody cares enough to bother. In the RFC, one editor so boldly said, "fix it", and then went away without doing anything about it.Mattnad (talk) 16:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
It is currently an issue outside the US. Here's another story on a UK based protest, here's an editorial on the topic.. I'm not really sure what the standard is for this kind of thing, but surely it seems like changing the article to "Campus rape in the US" would make the geographic bias worse rather than better. Nblund (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

I agree that this article is pretty much about the US. Even if there are a couple of,articles out there about other countries, they are rare. But what's plain as the nose on my face (I do have a nose) is that a few random sources don't add to a hill of beans. Campus rape is really only an issue in the US. THis article is just that. As for the Nblunds comments, The best you can come up with is an editorial? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.209.98.219 (talk) 18:49, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

The editorial is specifically responding to Mattnad's argument regarding the "contention and research that it is a unique topic to college campuses" -- I'm pointing to an editorial that makes that exact contention with regard to the UK. I've provided both scholarly and newspaper sources in this thread and elsewhere on this talk page discussing campus rape outside the United States, if you have trouble finding those, let me know and I can direct you to them via private message. To clarify, are you claiming that campus sexual assault is rare outside the US, or are you claiming that articles about campus rape are rare? Nblund (talk) 23:57, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
Rape happens everywhere, and what I've seen, a lot more outside of campuses than on them. But the topic of Campus rape is much more a U.S. issue. This article reflects that now, there's way more material on it, and a few random articles using a Google search from other countries doesn't change that. It's not that WP:notable outside here. There are first degree murders, larceny, car theft, embezzlement, etc. on campuses all over the world - I can google those too. But there isn't an article on those types of crime. This is notable here, and not really elsewhere. The article and editor focus shows that.2600:1011:B154:1E8:4B6:AAC2:C560:4F1E (talk) 17:58, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
WP: Notability refers to whether a topic warrants its own unique Wikipedia entry. I actually agree that the global material probably isn't sufficiently notable to warrant its own separate entry -- and that's precisely why I think that material should be included here. As I see it, the options are:
  • Create a separate entry for non-US cases (which might run afoul of WP: Notability )
  • Eliminate coverage of non-US cases altogether (which seems like it would make the geographic bias problem worse, rather than better)
  • Keep the article as it is and add more global material
To my mind, the latter option is clearly the most consistent with Wikipedia policies. Nblund (talk) 18:57, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Should we name the student accused of rape on Wikipedia talk pages?

See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Related issue: should we name the student accused of rape on the talk page Talk:Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight)?

Also see [2][3][4] and [5][6][7] --Guy Macon (talk) 18:02, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Page move

Would anyone object if this were moved to Sexual assault on campus? Rape is not the only issue discussed in the article and sources. Sarah (SV) (talk) 19:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

SlimVirgin (Sarah), see the #False Title, Gross Misuse of Statistics and #Requested move 22 December 2014 sections above, where this was discussed before, if you haven't already. I mentioned in the latter discussion that the title is not too accurate when considering the sexual assault content it includes. But then again, the terms rape and sexual assault are sometimes used interchangeably. Flyer22 (talk) 20:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
If the title is changed, then I think it should be "Campus sexual assault," which was suggested in the "False Title, Gross Misuse of Statistics" section, not "Sexual assault on campus." Flyer22 (talk) 20:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Flyer22. I'll take a look at that discussion. Sarah (SV) (talk) 20:35, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
I think it is worth noting that I do not see any opposition to a move to Campus sexual assault in either of those sections; the discussions trivally mentioned the possibility of a move to that location it was never the central topic. In my opinion, a move discussion is both warranted and overdue. VQuakr (talk) 20:41, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


No objection to a move, the current title really isn't consistent with the public discourse. "Campus sexual assault" seems good. "College sexual assault" might be an alternative, given that many of these events occur off campus. Nblund (talk) 14:21, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't think broadening the scope away from "rape" is a bad idea, although while we're at it, this article is still 99%+ about the United States. While some editors have fought making the article name consistent with its content, there still isn't a whole lot outside the US sphere that's been added since this was brought up months ago. I would propose "College Sexual Assault in the United States". "College" is better because the debate/discussion has been predominantly about the undergraduate experience, and includes college aged women who may not be on campus (I read somewhere a large proportion of assaults do not occur on campus).Mattnad (talk) 18:48, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
The "In the United States" move proposal was the subject of a move discussion; consensus was against the move (because it would have been an unnecessary content fork). Let's not rehash that same dead issue. I prefer "campus" over "college" as it is the more commonly recognizable phrasing. Whether most of the assaults actually happen on-campus is not, to me at least, particularly problematic for the article title. VQuakr (talk) 20:12, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree with VQuakr. Flyer22 (talk) 21:15, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm basically okay with "campus" or "college", just thought I should throw it out there. Nblund (talk) 15:19, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
@Mattnad I think "campus" is more common, but "college" may be more precise. I'm partial to "college" as well, but it seems like we at least have a consensus on changing "rape" to "sexual assault" -- would you be open to making the "college vs. campus" issue part of a separate move discussion? Nblund (talk) 15:26, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
It would be better to make only one page move if we can manage that if we think College vs. Campus can be resolved in a reasonable amount of time. There's other redirect work that has to be checked when you move an article and ideally we'd have to do that only once. How about we set up an RFC to invite broader commentary.Mattnad (talk) 11:46, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
An RM discussion is a good idea, but it's better to decide on an alternative name first; otherwise comments will be split and consensus will be harder to read. Campus sexual assault seems to be a common term, e.g. Time magazine,CBC. But if you all want to ask about both alternatives, that's fine with me too. Sarah (SV) (talk) 00:30, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I think that "campus sexual assault" is better than "college sexual assault" because the former is broader; when sources talk about rape or other sexual assault on campus, they are not always talking about college. Flyer22 (talk) 00:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)


Both Genders Vs. All Genders

@Azealia911: I left it fairly vague as I was limited to the number of words I could write. But my sources for Gender being strictly 2 items is based on this, this(on definition 2), and this. If you have some Reliable Sources on there being more than 2 biological genders in Homo Sapiens, please do share them. Jcmcc (Talk) 18:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Jcmcc450, is this issue really to be left up to a few outdated dictionary definitions? I'd even call out Oxford as disputable in this, especially as the sources you've cited don't specialise in gender/sex issues more notably. Facebook has over 50 different gender options, I think you're confusing sex with gender. There are limited sexes, there are countless genders. Sex is what you're born as/with, gender is what you identify as.
The American Psychological Association classes sex as:
"Sex refers to a person’s biological status and is typically categorized as male, female, or intersex (i.e., atypical combinations of features that usually distinguish male from female). There are a number of indicators of biological sex, including sex chromosomes, gonads, internal reproductive organs, and external genitalia."
While they class gender as:
"Gender refers to the attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that a given culture associates with a person’s biological sex. Behavior that is compatible with cultural expectations is referred to as gender-normative; behaviors that are viewed as incompatible with these expectations constitute gender non-conformity."
What would you say if I told you I didn't identify as male or female? You'd tell me that I didn't have a gender? That I was void? I can tell this will be rather a strenuous discussion, based on your "I don't care about what pronouns you prefer" userbox. *sigh* Azealia911 talk 19:00, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't see a big deal in using "all" instead of "both". It's still accurate and inclusive. That said, this is an evolving issue in writing. The only reason we'd refer to "both" would be a MOS guideline. Do we have such a thing on wikipedia? How does the NY Times handle this?Mattnad (talk) 19:14, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Is there a policy on two reliable sources clashing? As much as I tried to down-play the dictionary refs, both parties sources are equally as reliable, how do we choose which is more appropriate? Azealia911 talk 19:21, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
For something like this, I'd say it's a Manual of Style, call it a convention, discussion. The topic of gender identity is has become more prominent in mainstream writing, BUT, it's still evolving in terms of whether gender refers to two, or more types. More technically oriented sources including gender studies have had broader definitions than what's used in general access publications like Wikipedia. So for me, it's less of a battle of sources, since we can readily find older vs. newer definitions out there. Instead, we should see how publications like the NT Times refers to gender as an indicator of where things are now.Mattnad (talk) 20:34, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Before seeing this discussion on the talk page, I saw this edit by BoboMeowCat. And then I noted, "WP:Dummy edit: Regarding the gender debate, those dictionaries also make clear that it's more of [a] social matter than a biological matter; see sex and gender distinction. Azealia911 was seemingly noting gender variance/genderqueer." I'd noticed the gender dispute earlier, but I considered that it would likely settle after this edit, or soon afterward. I also knew that there was a possibility that it would turn into a talk page discussion. While gender still mostly falls into the gender binary, and (as noted at the Sex and gender distinction article) the terms sex and gender are commonly used interchangeably, I don't see a problem with Azealia911's revert or BoboMeowCat's wording, unless one wants to state that the sources only discuss those who identity, or seemingly identify, as male/man or female/woman. Flyer22 (talk) 23:22, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Tweak here. Flyer22 (talk) 23:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Ehh... call me old-fashioned, but I don't think faddish and fairly new social designs should be so readily reflected on Wikipedia... Since the dawn of the Homo Sapien we have had 2 genders. Considering these social ideas have only become part of the "significant" minority recently, I feel like it sticks out really badly. I personally like to employ a wait-and-see approach with new social concepts, and only when they become majority (reflected in the definition of the word, part of the widely recognized English language, etc.) would I start replacing things on Wikipedia. But if I stand alone in this, ill just drop it and move on. Jcmcc (Talk) 06:00, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I tweaked to include "any gender can be affected" instead of "all genders" or "both genders". Any can include two or more than two, so it seems this wording should work for people who see gender as binary and also for people who see gender as including more than two possibilities, relieving need for debate and arguments regarding whether sources say there are two or more than two genders.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 14:27, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
This was exactly the change I was trying to figure out. Thanks BoboMeowcat! Jcmcc (Talk) 18:19, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Request for Comments (RFC) on Campus Rape article.

This delicate and nuanced RfC concerns whether it is appropriate to insert a proposed paragraph involving recent rape accusations made in the United States, including one involving a piece of "performance art" which has attracted considerable media attention. This proposed paragraph is well-sourced and reasonably neutrally-phrased, but editors are concerned that it is at the wrong level of detail for this article. This is a legitimate concern, so the dispute is really about a matter of editorial judgment. It's the kind of situation where reasonable people might disagree.

I find that the proposed paragraph should not be added to this article. I'm confident that this is the correct close because Wikipedia's rules say that where there's no real consensus about something, the status quo ante should continue, and in this case this means that in the absence of consensus we shouldn't add the paragraph.

Editors bandy around the phrase "BLP" in the discussion below quite a bit, so in drafting this close I reflected on what WP:BLP actually says. It tells us to remove unsourced material about living people. It does not tell us to remove well-sourced material about living people, so at first glance it does not seem to be possible for the closer to give any extra weight to the BLP concerns. The "burden of evidence" is well-satisfied in the proposed paragraph!

However, the accusers and accused in all the cases here are people notable only for one event. We have a section of WP:BLP about non-public figures and another section about those accused of crime. These sections clearly apply with full force. I feel that Mattnad's proposed paragraph was drafted in such a way as to be very mindful of these concerns, but editors in the discussion below are quite skittish about them and I felt I had to give a little extra weight to what these editors say.

I hope this helps, and I'll welcome questions about or objections to this close on my talk page. All the best—S Marshall T/C 21:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In a new section I wrote, I started with coverage of two women who made statements to the media about their bad experiences with campus judicial processes, and also included a second paragraph, with citations, from the men's point of view. A couple of editors have reverted the second paragraph arguing either BLP concerns [8], or too much detail [9].

Does the deleted paragraph either violate BLP guidelines or have too much detail in part or in it's entirety? Mattnad (talk) 00:02, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment The question should actually be...should these details be in this overview article Campus rape or the case specific articles such Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight). It seems to me that discussion of Sulkowicz could be even further reduced in this overview article, and that specific details such as communication between alleged victim and alleged perpetrator is too case specific for overview article, while such details would be appropriate in the case specific article (if neutrally presented). --BoboMeowCat (talk) 00:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment I could be wrong here, but my reading is that the BLP policy just requires stricter application of extant Wikipedia standards. In other words: what might otherwise be a minor NPOV or reliability problem is subjected to heightened scrutiny when it references a living or recently deceased person. Clearly, the statements in question reference living people, but I think they run afoul of content guidelines by any standard. Specifically, I there are two problematic statements:
  • This statement: "After being vilified by Sulkowicz and the press, the man Sulkowicz accused responded by pointing out he had been cleared by the police and the school. He also provided months of very friendly communications between him and Sulkowicz between the alleged assault and the accusation" Raises neutrality concerns. The characterization of Sulkowicz campaign as "vilifying" and of the emails she exchanged with the accused as "very friendly" are wholly subjective, and Sulkowicz herself has publicly disputed the suggestion that the emails are exculpatory.
  • This statement: "Once the Brown student newspaper outed Sclove's alleged attacker, he and his lawyer responded that Sclove has increasingly embellished her story; going from feeling pressured to have sex without protest while intoxicated in her early accounts" raises reliability concerns. It cites a claim made in a letter to the DOJ from Daniel Kopin's attorney. This is essentially a self-published source produced by a party with an obvious vested interest. This citation would be problematic under any standard, but its particularly problematic here given that it more or less accuses Sclove of libeling Kopin.
The concerns are all related to a larger issue of relevance: the details of this specific case are not really that important for understanding the broader topic of campus rape, and there is no way -- without adding several additional paragraphs of additional material -- to give due weight to the perspectives of the individuals involved here. A detailed description of the specifics of this case is beyond the scope of this article, and a cursory examination is likely to continue to raise significant BLP issues. Nblund (talk) 00:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment The two editors above separately pick particulars within the paragraph as a justification to eliminate the entire paragraph. No effort wss made to correct problems as they saw them. Rather, any competing view was too much.Mattnad (talk) 11:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

On BLP concerns - the concerns are non-specific, but essentially it's that the lawyer letter is a self-published source. However that letter is also explicitly mentioned and linked to by NPR here, and by the Chronicle of Higher Education here, and by Minding the Campus, including some quotes from the letter. There is also ample material on how the media has harmed Koplin to task with one sided reporting. I'd be happy to include these sources in the paragraph if NBLUND has no more objections on his/her self-published concerns.
On whether or not the men's responses should be included - this is an article about campus rape. The two editors have no issue with the women's point of views, but will not permit any text, at all, with the other side of the story. The material is well sourced and helps to explain why the Universities did not expel the students (the source of the complaints by Sulkowitz and Sclove). It also provides balance, per WP:NPOV.Mattnad (talk) 11:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment As with any complex hypothetical, specific examples are illustrative. These two reasonably illustrate the colleges' difficulty in judging fairly while advocating for and protecting the victim. If better examples exist they should be substituted. I agree with Nblund's earlier point on the text describing Sclove's changing story - while the article points to discrepancies it doesn't support the statement. José Antonio Zapato (talk) 04:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment I support @BoboMeowCat: in further reducing the description in this overview article. Highlighting individual cases in this overview article can lead to bias. It should be handled in Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight) and The_New_Campus_Anti-Rape_Movement Since the latter talk page is empty, I'm guessing the page was deleted but wikipedia's new policy doesn't show that talk pages were cleared. (While I support clearing libelous material, I think wikipedia should show that it has had to resort to that, but that's another topic.)
To be fair, descriptions of how the women reacted after the alleged assaults need to take into account that, after trauma, victims often react with seemingly counterintuitive behaviors. They don't want to believe that what happened happened and so are trying to normalize the behavior through contact with the perpetrator. Continued contact with a perpetrator does not negate a rape claim. Beauxlieux (talk) 12:24, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

It would seem to me that we should rely on what reliable sources on the topic rather than insert our own views on whether or not we personally side with the accusers or the accused. The particular sentence in the paragraph can be refined, and the counterpoint simplified if needed. But again, the entire paragraph has been repeatably removed. Some editors have no issue with leaving rape accusations in the article (which were not affirmed by police or the schools), but bridle when the points of view of the accused are included. Now, what libelous material did you find in the paragraph?Mattnad (talk) 12:48, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

OK. Since this is considered too much detail to go into individual details, I've also removed the preceding paragraph that I wrote on activism. It's a lesser article now, constrained only to statistics and policy items, but that's the way some editors want it. Accordingly, we should avoid any examples, EVER, since that would cause edit wars it seems. Mattnad (talk) 12:59, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

This seems wp:POINTy. You even seem to admit you are taking action to make it a "lesser article". No one has argued all relevant content has to be removed. The argument has been to keep brief mention in overview article and save the details for case specific articles. --BoboMeowCat (talk) 15:50, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Is there a case specific article on Sclove? So if there is no article on that particle example, should we not include her experience in this article? And frankly we're talking about single fairly neutral sentences about each example - not a rehash of the article that elucidate the challenges for all parties. By comparison, we have nearly duplicate, multi-paragraph entries in the the 2014 Isla Vista Killings and the #yesallwomen articles. You've participated in both those articles, but I never seen you make a similar argument there.Mattnad (talk) 18:24, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
I won't beat this dead horse, but FWIW: I don't think anyone said that, and I don't want that. Specific details can be included, but they need to be neutral and should help readers understand how those events fit in to the development of public discussion and policy surrounding rape on college campuses. The reference to Jeanne Clery seems like a good example of this: it mentions the murder, but it doesn't discuss the grisly details or examine the merits of the case against her killer. This is a good use of specific detail. Nblund (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
While you were open in theory on ensuring NPOV which would have permitted edits, Bobomeowcat took the approach that individually identifiable details (no matter how accurate and sourced) were outside the scope of "a review article" as she put it. It was then parroted by Beauxlieux who clearly hadn't read the sources to support the complete removal of the paragraph. You are relatively unique in that you put in the time to make improvements. However there are other editors who's main goal is to push a POV. How else do you explain leaving in the preceeding paragraph that provides the women's point of view while simultaneously excising the men's story completely - all the time arguing that individual examples exceed the articles scope. A blatant contradiction.
It's far easier to delete than make improvements, and I grow tired of it. There is a growing amount of reporting on the complexities of forcing colleges into the middle of this, but based on the arguments of the two editors, we cannot include any of that except at a generic level because of an arbitrary and self-serving argument that this is a review article. So should we have a separate article on the controversies and challenges? Aside from an inappropriate fork, the same battleground mentality will arise. So this article will be incomplete and tend towards those who don't care about balance. Mattnad (talk)
Okay. I think you may have me confused with someone else: I'm the one who initially removed the statements from the men and left the statements from the women -- not because of POV, but because the statements from the women were factual, relevant, well-sourced, and neutral in tone. If you're seriously interested in understanding my perspective or reaching a compromise, I'll gladly explain my views in greater detail. Regardless: don't badmouth editors who offer constructive, valid criticisms in an RFC you posted. Nblund (talk) 22:11, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
@Mattnad: I am offended that you said I "parroted" someone else and that you are claiming omnipotence over what I have or have not read. Nowhere did I say I was supporting "complete removal of the paragraph." I request an apology. Beauxlieux (talk) 03:49, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
You used the same argument, referring to this as an "overview article" to justify removing topical content. And my oh my, how "offended" you are for that, while you felt free to accuse me of inserting "libelous material" despite ample sources which I can only presume you didn't bother to read. Here they are again, NPR , Chronicle of Higher Education, and Minding the Campus. If you had read the sources, then maybe you don't understand what libel is.Mattnad (talk) 10:43, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
I did not accuse you of inserting libelous material. Please read more carefully. Beauxlieux (talk) 14:53, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough. I took it in context as connected to a discussion about the paragraph in question. From your current statement, you meant that in general, and I support that completely. We should not have libelous material in any article.Mattnad (talk) 16:52, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment I think it's a BLP problem to just say "alleged rapist." That label would normally be applied to someone who has been accused of a crime but not yet tried. In this case he's been found "not responsible" by Columbia and the police have declined to investigate. The only way to achieve balance here is to go into detail, which is too much for this article. I suggest cutting out "alleged rapist": "...who protested her view that Columbia University mishandled her sexual assault case." [end of sentence] Kendall-K1 (talk) 17:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

The "alleged" is problematic in that it suggests a criminal process. What is true is that the women are making statements that they were raped, and the sources are clear on that. Perhaps instead of "alleged rape", we refer instead to "accusation of rape". That is accurate I think.Mattnad (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Let's try "accused" instead of "alleged." That's what they used at the main mattress article. Kendall-K1 (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment  The paragraph lists two items countering the Sulkowicz claim: "the man Sulkowicz accused responded by pointing out he had been cleared by the police and the school" and "He also provided months of very friendly communications between him and Sulkowicz between the alleged assault and the accusation". Both items are true, but there is more against Sulkowicz.

The whole case boils down to she-said/he-said, which means trusting Sulkowicz. Sulkowicz, though, has demonstrably been dishonest. For example, here is a video where Sulkowicz claims that the same man raped two other women; yet here is an article explaining that the other women claimed only (i) attempted forced kissing and (ii) emotional abuse in a relationship. That same article describes how Sulkowicz was almost certainly dishonest in describing how the university handled her reported rape. And here is another article detailing a further issue about the integrity of Sulkowicz's claims.

For me, the biggest reason to doubt that Sulkowicz was raped—and thus believe that the police and the university were correct in dismissing the case—is that it is a she-said/he-said case where she has been demonstrably dishonest. The suggested paragraph, however, does not make that clear at all. I am not an expert on Wikipedia policies, but suspect that by not fairly presenting one of the main reasons, the paragraph might be considered biased and thus violate BLP. EllieTea (talk) 04:12, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Since there are a couple of editors who want as little as possible written on the "other side of the story" here, it's been a challenge to have anything at all. The argument is that if we want detail, it can only be in an article dedicated to the particular person (seriously).Mattnad (talk) 10:22, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
I understand! The agenda-pushing of some editors is so strong that it seems to override even wanting an NPOV presentation. EllieTea (talk) 11:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
@EllieTea: As I've said before, describing something as "very friendly" is a matter of interpretation, and, in general, a lot of this stuff seems to amount to a WP: no trojan horses problem: it attempts to accuse both women of lying by presenting a lot of innuendo, but stops short of making that accusation explicitly.
Both campaigns are relevant because they sparked a national discussion about the ways that campuses deal with rape allegations -- not because the individual details of either woman's alleged assault was particularly unusual or controversial compelling -- those materials are left out because they don't really tell us anything about the issue of campus rape. The article on WWI includes background on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It does not, however, discuss the various conspiracy theories regarding who was really responsible for the shooting. As interesting as that information is, its inclusion in an article on WWI really wouldn't help clarify anything about WWI.Nblund (talk) 13:20, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
By that reasoning, the article should also discuss the fabricated story of Jackie being gang-raped at the University of Virgina. Indeed, why does the article not do so?
Having said that, I do agree with your criticism of the phrase "very friendly". What do you think of "seemingly very friendly"?  EllieTea (talk) 13:37, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Primarily because "Jackie's story" was discredited fairly rapidly and it didn't really amount to activism. I think a short, neutral, and relevant mention of Jackie's Story might make sense as part of a section that discussed recent press coverage of campus rape.
I don't think adding "seemingly" to the front of things solves the problem see: WP: Avoid weasel words. Nblund (talk) 13:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
The reporter, Cathy Young, used the term "friendly" herself. It's in the source, so really it's allowable, per WP:RS and WP:BLP. And any reasonable person looking at the statements would conclude the same. To say otherwise presumes we knew what the writers really meant. Sulkowitz also confirmed that the texts were accurate and not redacted.Mattnad (talk) 14:13, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
No. Just because a subjective interpretation is in an outside source doesn't mean that it can be asserted as fact. See: WP: Assert. I don't read those emails as friendly, or remotely indicative of anything having to do with this issue. Nblund (talk) 14:51, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
How about "described as friendly"? I don't there is any way to get to "objectively friendly".Mattnad (talk) 16:06, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Described that way by whom? A single individual with a well-known agenda characterized them that way, and the author of the emails has disputed that characterization. Why does any of this stuff matter? If we omit Young's editorializing about the nature of the messages, it amounts to saying "these two people communicated". How is that any more than a trivial detail? Nblund (talk) 20:06, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Here are some quotes from the e-mails: "I love you Paul", "we still haven’t really had a paul-emma chill sesh since summmmerrrr", and when he invites her to a party already in progress in his room, he says that there are too many guys there and she replies "I’ll be dere w da females soon". It is manifest that they are indeed very friendly; no reasonable person would deny that.   EllieTea (talk) 21:01, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
I disagree, and it doesn't really matter how manifestly apparent you think it is, its still a purely subjective judgement. Why does this matter? Again, it seems like the end goal here is to impugn Sulkowicz for failing to behave in a way that people assume rape victims are supposed to behave -- but Cathy Young herself acknowledges that people respond to trauma in a wide variety of ways, and its actually quite common for victims of sexual assault or abuse to maintain close ties and even intimate relationships with the people who hurt them. Nblund (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Seems like a lot of effort to keep out the word "friendly" that is explicitly used by a reliable source. While you may not agree with Young's position on the topic, that in itself does not disqualify the source. Do you have a source that says the communications were not friendly? Or should we rely only on your subjective opinion?Mattnad (talk) 10:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
I was stating my personal disagreement with Ellietea's assertion that the "friendliness" of those statement was manifestly obvious -- it isn't. I believe I've cited this previously: Sulkowicz herself has repudiated Young's article. Its the opinion of a single individual whose agenda is widely known. Why does her viewpoint warrant special consideration? And how is it informative?
I could, by the way, point to reliably sourced evidence to show that the man accused was a college athlete and a fraternity member. This information is factual, but its also -- to use a legal term -- "more prejudicial than probitive". It clearly isn't useful evidence, its just a roundabout way of making an accusation that can't be reliably sourced. Nblund (talk) 22:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
You could, but you'd only be speaking to people that have the mindset that it's relevant. You could add that he's white, a foreigner, etc. Most readers of wikipedia don't share these tropes, and it would still have to make sense in the context of what's being reported now. Here are a couple more sources indicating, in the context that Emma's communications are inconsistent with her accusations, that the texts and Facebook postings were "friendly" for quite a while after the time she states she was attacked.Reason and the Guardian. Neither of these were written by Cathy Young. Your comment that this case is not unique is very much at odds with the Washington Times that states "What makes [redacted’s case unique is that he was never disciplined by the university."] Where you and I differ, perhaps, is that I defer to reliable sources which uniformly agree that [redacted] was cleared by the university and the police, whereas you appear to be operating under an assumption that Emma's accusations are still possibly accurate. At any rate, now that other sources refer to the communications as friendly, could we refer to them as friendly in wikipedia? There are none that I have read that say otherwise.Mattnad (talk) 13:00, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
This is, again, simply editorial from another polemicist with a clear position on this topic. The Guardian article you're citing doesn't contain that characterization at all. It says they were friendly prior to the rape -- which isn't actually disputed by anyone.
I don't know what "most readers" believe, but I suspect that most would object to including a statement in the article characterizing [redacted] as "a physically formidable college athlete and fraternity member" while discussing the accusations. It would be a subjective statement of opinion inserted for the sole purpose of evoking a prejudice to call [redacted] a rapist. I keep asking why the inclusion of the emails, or the characterization of them as friendly is so central, and it seems fairly clear to me from your statement here that the point of including this information is to call Sulkowicz a liar without doing so directly. This is a trojan horse.
Sulkowicz has disputed Young's article -- I've pointed this out three times already. And [redacted] wasn't cleared by police, they declined to pursue charges. I am absolutely operating under the assumption that either party in this controversial issue could be correct. This is precisely was the idea of NPOV requires. Nblund (talk) 15:55, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
I have no opinion on whether Sulkowitz is a liar or not, and even if I did, it's irrelevant (as is your opinion). The Guardian very much refers to the communications as friendly, although they are referring to it as description. Ms. Sulkwowicz never denied the statements, she just wanted to annotate them, which she then declined to do. In your position giving her claims equal footing however, you give no weight to the several investigations by the university, the police, and the district attorney. Not one of them found enough evidence supporting Ms. Sulkowitz accusation, and they had full view of every piece of evidence which you, Nblund, do not.
What's more important as part of this new development is how the university did not do anything at all to protect Mr. [redacted] from the backlash of Ms. Sulkowicz statements violating confidentiality, her making statements they did not agree with based on their own investigation, and then providing her with a platform to do that. We now have new coverage that adds information that's complementary to that. While I'm not saying we should include this as short sentence, it's part of details that have been covered by reliable sources. So since you are against using the word "friendly" (despite now three reliable sources including that description). As an alternative, we can quote more expansively from what's been published by reliable sources without qualifiers and let the Wikipedia reader decide how to interpret it.Mattnad (talk) 16:56, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps I misunderstood you, but I took your statement that I was "operating under an assumption that Emma's accusations are still possibly accurate" as implying that you believed this was not a reasonable viewpoint. It certainly sounds like you, and the sources you're citing, are attempting to present the emails as evidence that Sulkowicz is not telling the truth -- despite the fact that Young herself acknowledges that this is a problematic assumption.
You Guardian describes [redacted]'s lawsuit as alleging the [redacted]'s exchanges were friendly. The source here is, in essence, [redacted] himself. The remaining (2) sources are from editorials, which, while not completely unusable as citations, are clearly suspect. Sulkowicz did annotate the messages, she just declined to participate in Young's article. Here, once again, is her response, including annotations. Note that Sulkowicz repeatedly says that Young's version of events lack important context and calls them misleading.
How are the emails relevant to the complaints about the university or their investigation? Do any of these sources actually state that university actually considered the message to be exonerating evidence? Do you think that quoting extensively from an opinion piece written by a woman who has essentially built her career on attacking anti-rape activism is really a solution to a problem of bias? Nblund (talk) 22:11, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I think that a fair discussion of the Sulkowicz case should note the following. First, that the accused was found innocent under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. Second, that Sulkowicz did not press criminal charges, saying that doing so would be "too draining" (yet she is carrying a large mattress around campus for years and spending hundreds of hours on other public activist work). Third, there is no evidence for her accusation other than her word. Fourth, some of the claims made by Sulkowicz are demonstrably false. Fifth, the man claims that the sex was consensual and he has presented evidence that has been interpreted as supporting his claim—social media records.  EllieTea (talk) 06:53, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Comment Regarding this: Kopin was found responsible for the complaint filed by Sclove by the student conduct board. Specifically, they found he violated the policies concerning: “...Sexual misconduct that involves non-consensual physical contact of a sexual nature” and (3b) “Sexual misconduct that includes one or more of the following: penetration, violent physical force or injury.” Presumably, the student conduct board doesn't convict people of "rape" specifically, but Sclove's claims were validated. That's the whole reason he was suspended. Nblund (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

For the other side to that story, see here and here.  EllieTea (talk) 13:30, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
I get that there is a dispute, but I'm referencing a phrase in the entry that claimed that neither of the men "have been found guilty of rape by the criminal justice system or the universities". The university validated Sclove's allegation (although it didn't technically use the term "rape") and the controversy was regarding the seemingly light sentence he received. Nblund (talk) 13:55, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Nblund seems to be fine with "rape" being used in the first part of the paragraph as well as an arbitrary requirement that we cannot provide any detail of the nuance afterwards that led to a relatively minor punishment (which Sclove protested which led to her activism). So we are left with only suggesting he is a rapist per the first part, and then forced by an arbitrary policy decision on this article only, to eliminate ANY explanation of why it may not be rape per reliable sources. Then Nblund's brings in an opinion based on original research to justify calling it rape.
It was fight to have any counterpoint at all, and now that we have it, grudgingly, we have an editor determined suggest someone is a rapist, full stop, no detail on how it may not be so. The roams into a BLP violation. Bobomeowcat's run on sentence (had to keep it to one sentence I guess since it had to seem as small an explanation as possible) also merges the Columbia case with the Brown case. In the instance Sulkowicz, the man she accused was cleared by the university of all changes. But as written we don't know that. Another potential BLP violation.
A bigger issue for the article are efforts to eliminate an honest explanation of what's been readily covered by the press - figuring out what happens in sexual assault cases can be challenging, is not always black and white, and that not every sexual assault or misconduct accusation is rape.Mattnad (talk) 13:45, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Its really not helpful when you continually attribute viewpoints to other editors. The word "rape" isn't used in the first paragraph, and the wording makes it clear that these were only allegations. I removed only a small portion of a sentence because it was misleading. Its not original research, its mentioned in the citations you provided. For the record, I think it would be equally inappropriate to mention additional details that lend credence to Sclove and Sulkowicz' claims or make the men they accused look bad. For instance: as written, we also don't know that both men were accused by multiple women. This is certainly a reliably sourced fact, but its excluded because it doesn't really help us understand the topic of campus rape.
As for the vagaries of rape accusations: the section heading is titled "activism", and its not clear to me how any of that counts as activism. I think its reasonable to include a discussion of the challenges facing colleges, but, as a starting point, why not start that discussion under a separate subheading? Nblund (talk) 14:34, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Well, if you don't think of those examples of activism, they can be moved to another section. The article has opportunity to be expanded around the debates in how colleges handle/mishandle accusations. I think we should have much more on how women were ignored by colleges in the past (which is really missing here for the most part), as well as the swing of the pendulum where we now have concerns about due process for the accused (which by the way includes instances where the man is the complainant). I think we should expand as much as need to explain both sides of contentious examples in the press. I've tried to be balanced here and have added material from both sides of the coin. My goal is to lay it out with as much detail as needed to provide necessary and neutral information.
What got me riled was not the pursuit of neutral language, but the wholesale deletion of content that explains the other side instead of improving it. When that happens, leaving only one side (of the women in this instance), it looks like a POV problem. It didn't help that some editors made up a rule that this article just CAN'T have a bit more detail.... because it's a "review" or "overview" article. Meanwhile we have a gigantic section on the statistics, and the rest is given short shrift. They way I see it, we should include multiple perspective and use as much space as needed for accuracy and balance.
I will say that you among the editors add a lot of value to the article and when you make a good point, I don't object.Mattnad (talk) 15:14, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
To be clear, I'm suggesting the discussion about the "figuring out what happens" stuff may belong in another section -- the mattress protest, at least, is a pretty clear-cut case of activism.
I will say that I don't really care about being complimented and you need to stop insulting other editors who are making good faith contributions and who have remained civil in the face of your unremitting stream of petulance. Everyone here has raised valid concerns that I share and that will need to be dealt with at some point -- don't mistake my effort at mediating for a consensus. Nblund (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 15:31, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Wasn't meant as a compliment but an observation (you subjectively assumed that). But the most recent back and forth on that paragraph demonstrates the folly of minimizing the counterpoint. I don't think the argument that we cannot have detail on the nuances is making this a better article. I saw a glimmer of hope in your openness to more context.Mattnad (talk) 10:56, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
The article currently stresses that the men dispute what the women have claimed and have not been found guilty. It highlights presumption of innocence and the challenges such universities face with respect to due process with he said/she said cases. It seems some editors want to add details to make one side (the men's only) more credible, ignoring there are no details in the article which make the women's story more credible and a POV editor could push to add those also, which fortunately isn't happening here. Honestly, it seems inappropriate to add details that support either side's version of events in this overview article. Such details belong in case specific articles.--BoboMeowCat (talk) 13:02, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
It is common knowledge that the majority of rapists get away with it. It is also common knowledge that the majority of rapists deny their act. For those reasons, many people (disclosure: me included) tend to presume that rape accusations, even if unproved, have some merit. The Sulkowicz case is different, for the reasons I have described in this section. To repeat the Sulkowicz accusation without noting those differences would therefore seem to defame that man that Sulkowicz is accusing. I am concerned, therefore, that the text that you advocate is a violation of WP:BLP.  EllieTea (talk) 13:26, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
Bobomeowcat, if you feel we need more balance, I'm OK with that. But some editors (including you) have tried to limit details, particularly those which come from men's perspective (judging by the wholesale deletion of that material a few times) using the "review article" position. This article right now is mostly statistics and studies. I personally see no issue on expanding other sections with accurate language. But when we favor one view over another, then you get these battles. Are you OK with relaxing on the interpretation that this article must be parsimonious with details?Mattnad (talk) 14:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
The article doesn't really repeat the Sulkowicz accusation in any meaningful sense, it primarily focuses on the way that her protest affected the public policy discourse around the issue of campus rape. The name of the man she accused is not mentioned, nor are the details of her assault, or the supporting evidence she cited in her case. These details aren't mentioned because they are mostly irrelevant to the topic. Similarly, its probably inappropriate to mention details of the men's counterclaims. Sulkowicz' case, on its own, is fairly routine -- its her protest that made it noteworthy and its her protest that ought to be covered. Nblund (talk) 22:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment reading the above I have agree with Mattnad, this is a BLP issue, even though the subject is not specifically the accused, since this content is dealing with a living person, the content in question shouldn't be a mini-attack page. We can include neutrally worded, summarized content about the accusation, but it need be balanced as not to prejudice the reader towards the POV of the accuser or the accused.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:15, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment Sulkowicz is not mentioned in the New Campus Anti Rape Movement article and it seems to me that she should be. Theses issue are already addressed on the Mattress Performance page in detail. Whether or not her case has merit, she has catalyzed a lot of attention on the issue and inspired a lot of activists. Perhaps, there needs to be a separate section in this campus rape article on due process rights, etc. Beauxlieux (talk) 19:44, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment This paragraph violates WP:BLP, WP:RS and WP:Undue. One of the two sources is a primary source (title IX complaint letter) containing serious allegations against a named living person. The language is off in tone ("vilified" etc.) and the focus on two individuals is undue in this overview article. The other source is an opinion piece by men's rights writer Cathy Young. Not unreliable per se but clearly not suitable to serve as the sole secondary source for an entire paragraph. --SonicY (talk) 12:23, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I find the current text bland yet in regard to an intriguing case and yet with a potentially questionable value in regard to an article that is meant to summarise a wide ranging topic. Sclove is described as being in a fragile state while Kopin is anything between being a violent rapist and near-strangler, a woefully imperceptible person or a relatively honest person who is now in trouble due to lacks of clarity on Sclove's side. I'm sure that there are other variables here.
I only came to this RfC as I thought I might close the thing and would certainly not want my comments to hamper closure. However I think that this interesting case should either be handled in more detail with information added on both sides or maybe it should be dropped from the article completely. I don't know if a great contribution is given to the article with a case resulting in a not guilty in which the accuser has not also been indicated relatively clearly to be fabricating the story or in error in some way. I don't know if there are other case contents that could be used but I think that cases with relatively clear cut results may more greatly benefit a summary article. GregKaye 22:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Requested move 8 June 2015

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Move. (non-admin closure) Natg 19 (talk) 23:25, 18 June 2015 (UTC)


Campus rape → Campus sexual assault – Per the discussion earlier on this page, "sexual assault" more precisely covers the subject matter of this article compared with "rape". A proposed alternate move target is College sexual assault; please identify which target you support in your !vote. VQuakr (talk) 00:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Support move to "Campus sexual assault." I stated in the #Page move section above that Campus sexual assault is better than College sexual assault because the former is broader; when sources talk about rape or other sexual assault on campus, they are not always talking about college. Flyer22 (talk) 01:07, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment On the one hand Ngrams and Google trends for "campus rape,campus sexual assault,sexual assault on campus" show the proposed title to be comfortably viable yet the title remains imprecise (as per many attacks occurring off campus) and I am have some concern that a use of two adjectives before a noun (as in the proposed title) may suggest a level of precision that is not there. The current title also has commonality with titles such as Date rape, Marital rape, Statutory rape, Male rape, Prison rape, and Gang rape and perhaps a move from a "... rape" format found in Wikipedia navigation templates may also confirm such a view of precision. I also wonder whether a title such as Sexual assault amongst students and teachers would have too much of a broadening effect on the topic. Articles frequently have content that is more extensive than the title immediately suggests. This is not to say that I don't see advantages in the proposed move but wanted to raise these issues for editors who may have researched the topic more than me.
ping: VQuakr, Flyer22, Sarah (SV), Jcmcc GregKaye 10:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
GregKaye, I do not think that we should go around changing the titles of the rape articles you mentioned so that they use "sexual assault" in place of "rape." They are titled "rape" for valid reasons -- because they are WP:Notable topics, are mostly about rape, rape and sexual assault are sometimes (commonly actually) used interchangeably (as I noted above), and WP:Common name applies. Forms of sexual assault are appropriately covered in the Sexual assault article. If any of those forms ever need a WP:Spinout article, then that can be done when the time comes. On a side note: When it is clear that I am watching a page, there is no need WP:Ping me to it. Flyer22 (talk) 16:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
GregKaye, use of NGrams is not particularly relevant to this discussion. The cited policy section supporting this move is WP:PRECISE, not WP:COMMONNAME. This is because the proposal is to update the title to better represent the scope of the actual article, and all titles (current and proposed) are readily recognizable. A quick review of the other "... rape" articles suggests that the scope of those articles also includes at least some forms of sexual assault other than rape, though I do not think there is a strong argument for moving all of those articles. VQuakr (talk) 23:52, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
If we're operating under WP:Precise, wouldn't we then use "College" rather than "Campus"?Mattnad (talk) 10:34, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
No, I do not think so. From the first sentence of the article: Campus rape is the rape of a student attending an institute of higher learning, such as a college or university, though not all reported incidents of students being raped occur on campus property. "Campus" connotes geography better than "college" (which usually is used to indicate the abstract concept of an organization), and we clarify the common usage of "campus" in this context in the lede sentence. "College" is also less recognizable; it just is not the term that English speakers use for the subject. VQuakr (talk) 15:37, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I know that's I'm flogging dead horse here, but MOST assaults do not happen on Campus according to the CSA, hence my agreement your WP:Precision point made above. You just contradicted yourself arguing instead for one common name (although College is used quite often too). The intro to the article reflects perception, rather than reality.Mattnad (talk) 16:53, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Mattnad, I saw your commentary about "college sexual assault" in the Page move section above. I noted above in this section why I think "campus sexual assault" is the broader terminology. I don't think that titling the article "college sexual assault" is going to make people think of the off-campus matters any more than "campus sexual assault" does. Furthermore, titles of Wikipedia articles do not always 100% reflect the content of the article; nor do they have to. We have the article's text for that, and this article clarifies in the lead that not all of these rapes actually occur on campus. Flyer22 (talk) 16:33, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
For me, it doesn't matter what people think of when they come to the article. It's whether the article title best reflects the topic and content. I saw your response above. If we're taking about keeping it broader, off-campus SA incidents dwarf the number non-student victim events and topics. "College" also refers to graduate programs BTW. Mattnad (talk) 17:14, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Comment how would editors view titles Sexual assault in campus related contexts, Sexual assault off and on campus, Sexual assault, off and on campus and Off and on campus sexual assault? GregKaye 07:10, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
As unnecessarily wordy. Flyer22 (talk) 08:01, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
None of those seem concise or natural. VQuakr (talk) 15:37, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Fair enough on the wordy and not being concise scores - though the suggested titles arguably have WP:naturalness containing the words "campus" and "sexual assault"
Support Campus sexual assault as a better description of the topic as presented in the article than Campus rape. GregKaye 18:58, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Why am I not surprised that the editors who pushed for the move are not willing now to update the article based on the move since the copy is out of sync with the title. So much arm-chair editing here. Mattnad (talk) 17:10, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
Mattnad, what do you mean? The article already has a lot of non-rape sexual assault information in it; that's why it was moved to the broader title. Also, SlimVirgin, Sarah (SV), is often busy with other things on Wikipedia, but she is very good at fixing up an article and validly expanding it. Flyer22 (talk) 01:01, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
The article as written does not match its title. An article is not supposed to be merely a collection of facts. The scope of this article has changed, but at minimum the language should be edited to fit. What I've noted, and become very frustrated about, are editors who spend a lot of time sniping from the sidelines and don't bother doing any heavy lifting. This is the rule rather than the exception these days and wikipedia is in decline as editors who do the work leave and are not replaced.Mattnad (talk) 03:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
You must mean your "Campus sexual assault" vs "College sexual assault" argument. Since I've already disagreed with you on that, I would rather not continue to debate you on that. And as for heavy lifting on Wikipedia, I've done my fair share of it, especially with regard to sex and sexology articles, as many at this site know; so my conscience is clear on that matter. Flyer22 (talk) 05:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
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