This is an archive of past discussions about Circumcision. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Veering off topic: Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse, but I think it would be a good idea to rename this article to "Male circumcision", with a redirect to here from "Circumcision". In doing the web searches on "circumcision" I saw a lot of stuff about female circumcision, so I guess "circumcision" is rather ambiguous. See Blackworm's argument on my talk page (archive). (I changed my mind; see my oppose rationale in the next section.10:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 10:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we have discussed this at length previously. I'm opposed to renaming, for reasons described, for example, here. Jakew (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I have read that very lengthy discussion and am not convinced Jake. To be frank it doesn't end in any kind of consensus. Circumcision can be male or female and locale and subject generates POV of which. I agree with Coppertwig and Blackworm. This article should be renamed Male Circumcision. There should be a neutral article called Circumcision that briefly covers both and stubs to both male and female circumcision in more detail. Garycompugeek (talk) 13:08, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
I know that discussion didn't end in consensus, Gary, but it does contain lengthy discussion of the issues. There is very little ambiguity, since when "circumcision" (as opposed to "male circumcision" or "female circumcision") is used in sources, it generally means the removal of the penile foreskin. Moreover, the term "circumcision" (as opposed to "male circumcision") is the commonly-used term for the procedure. As such, the obvious name for the article is "circumcision", and what little ambiguity there is is resolved through the hatnote at the start of this article. Jakew (talk) 13:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
English sources typically but just because this is the English speaking Wikipedia does not mean we do not take the entire world into account. Sources about female circumcision do not state "female circumcision" in the article but quote circumcision as used here. Additionally circumcision is a verb. It does not take gender into account. Garycompugeek (talk) 14:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
We're using the English word "circumcision" here; it doesn't matter here what that word might mean in other languages, though we talk about the phenomenon everywhere in the world, not just English-speaking countries. Sources often say "female circumcision" in the title and just "circumcision" within the article, I think. I quoted one news source in one of those discussions, I think, that said "circumcision" in the title and meant female circumcision. By the way, "circumcision" is a noun; the verb is "circumcise". ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:23, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig I think we are trying to make the same point and I was referring to the act of circumcision or as you have put it correctly circumcise. Garycompugeek (talk) 19:25, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, the first three sources referenced in the article use a gender-neutral definition of circumcision, or use disambiguating language, which some may eventually drop as it becomes clear that male circumcision is the topic discussed:
Dictionaries. [1]1. The act of cutting off the prepuce or foreskin of males, or the internal labia of females.
A journal. [2] (via CIRP) Strabo's statement that the Hebrew priesthood imposed male and female circumcision for tyrannical and superstitious reasons supports Wilhelm Reich's theory of circumcision as a mechanism [...].
Another journal: Title: Male Circumcision: A Gender Perspective[3]
The topic that should have the title, "circumcision" is the topic of circumcision, not the topic of male circumcision. The topic of male circumcision's article should be called male circumcision, per WP:TITLE policy. Blackworm (talk) 09:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, if you read my comment again, you'll see that I do not claim that the term "male circumcision" is never used, only that it is used less commonly than "circumcision" when describing this procedure. As such, not only do I acknowledge the existence of sources using "circumcision" to mean both circumcision and FGC, or using "male circumcision" instead of "circumcision", but I am quite confident that others exist in addition to those which you quote. Again, I refer to my comments in one of the many previous discussions about this, for example those of 23:07, 26 January 2008 and 13:56, 27 January 2008 in this thread. Jakew (talk) 10:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC) (edited 10:46, 15 June 2008 (UTC))
Coppertwig, Garycompugeek, Blackworm and Jakew, just thought I'd draw your attention to the fact that the documents referenced in the WHO/CDC/HIV paragraph of the lead use the phrase "male circumcision" extensively throughout their text. Perhaps these organisations consider there to be significant potential ambiguity, enough to justify continued use of the phrase throughout their own publications even when those publications actually contain it in the title. Beejaypii (talk) 12:21, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it would make sense to have an article about both male and female circumcision (regardless of what such an article would be called). I don't think there's anything that can be said about both male and female circumcision: only about one or the other. If anyone finds several reliable sources that give a significant amount of information about circumcision-in-general (not a sentence about male circumcision and then a sentence about female circumcision, but a significant number of statements about "circumcision" meaning both) then maybe we could have such an article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
How can you advocate changing the name to "Male Circumcision" and not have a "Female Circumcision"? Circumcision in general will talk about both male and female circumcision briefly and pair down to their respective stubs in more detail. Garycompugeek (talk) 14:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
(<<outdent) Easily: the decision was made that the title of the article would be "female genital cutting". Female circumcision is a redirect to there. Give an example of a statement that can be made about "circumcision" meaning both male and female: I expect there are very few such statements. When several reliable sources are presented that each have several paragraphs of information about "circumcision" (meaning both; not a bunch of sentences that say on the one hand male circumcision this and on the other hand female circumcision that) then I'll start to think it might be notable enough for an article. An article that has little except a section on male circumcision and a section on female circumcision isn't much use: might as well just have the separate articles. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Title changes to female genital cutting should be discussed on that Talk page. Coppertwig, please refer to the first two sources I quote above for examples of statements made about "circumcision" meaning both male and female. Many, many other sources exist despite the near non-existence of the circumcision of females in the English-speaking world. We could always go over and try to change the soldier article to define it as "a male in an army" -- but I doubt this article's earlier editors' warped, irrational, policy-violating approach to the title of this article along with the criteria presented to justify it ("but Blackworm, 'male soldier' is used less commonly than 'soldier' when describing a male soldier") would be even considered seriously, much less adopted, anywhere but here.
Jakew's objection has no merit: he has not demonstrated his claim, nor is his claim meaningful. Even if sources overwhelmingly used "circumcision" as meaning the topic of male circumcision, that is about as surprising as sources treating "penis" as meaning the topic of the human penis. Yet, the penis article makes clear that a penis is not necessarily a human penis. That reflects the reality of the topic: "penis." Here, we do not reflect the reality of the topic: "circumcision." Jakew's criteria is invalid, and a misinterpretation of WP:UCN guideline anyway. WP:TITLE policy which I reference above easily trumps the misinterpretation of that guideline. The narrowing of the topic of circumcision implicit in some sources (mostly medical sources, since female circumcision is very rarely performed in a medical context) discussing male circumcision does not change what the topic is: male circumcision. Further, as Beejaypii points out, the most prevalent and international sources (WHO, international journals) repeatedly disambiguate this topic by using "male circumcision" to describe it. Anyway, as many pages of discussion show, Jakew will never accept a change in title of this article, nor will he accept the inclusion of the topic of the circumcision of females in this article. He insists on inconsistency and policy violation. Luckily, he is in the minority in this discussion. Blackworm (talk) 20:31, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, I have actually demonstrated my claim in previous discussions, and if you read my above comment again, you'll see that I provided a link to one of those discussions along with the timestamps of the comments.
I'm glad that you link to WP:TITLE, which says (to quote from the "nutshell"): "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." Most of that advice, of course, reflects that in WP:UCN. In short, we should favour an "obvious" title provided that there is a reasonable minimum of ambiguity (which is not the same as "no ambiguity"). This leads us to two questions. First, given that the topic is the removal of the penile foreskin, what is the obvious (easily recognised & intuitively linked) title? What word or phrase would most readily spring to mind? The obvious answer is "circumcision". Second, how much ambiguity is truly present? If someone were to type in "circumcision", how likely is it that they would actually be looking for female genital cutting? I'd suggest that, while plausible, it is relatively unlikely, and this situation can be (and is) addressed through the hatnote (consistent with WP:MOSDAB). Jakew (talk) 20:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, the first source you quote is a dictionary; it provides merely a definition, not any statement about "circumcision". The second source provides a statement about "male and female circumcision" which could perhaps be construed to satisfy my criterion, but which also contains the word "and", implying that two concepts, not one, are being talked about; and the third seems to be about male circumcision. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, what exactly is a reasonable minimum of ambiguity in your opinion? Because personally, I would say the ambiguity of "circumcision" is not reasonably minimal. What do others think here? Furthermore, I think that the "obvious (easily recognised and intuitively linked) title" for an article about the removal of the penile foreskin is "male circumcision".
In my opinion, there's another question we should be asking here: if someone were to type in "circumcision", how likely is it that they would expect to retrieve an article encompassing both male and female circumcision? If it's likely, shouldn't we then have a single article called "circumcision" covering both forms of circumcision, or at least a disambiguation page linking to the current article, renamed as "Male circumcision", and to "Female circumcision" (which currently links to the Female genital cutting article, as I'm sure we're all aware)? Beejaypii (talk) 22:12, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, it occurs to me that sometimes an "obvious" title may be slightly ambiguous, and conversely a completely ambiguous title may be so non-obvious that it is impossible to guess. As an extreme example, a completely unambiguous title would be "removal of the foreskin of the penis", but it would be so non-obvious that it would be all but useless. Finding the reasonable minimum of ambiguity involves, in part, weighing this against the "obviousness" of the title.
Since we've discussed the level of ambiguity before, allow me to quote from one of the comments in a previous thread (dated 23:07, 26 January 2008; see above for link):
Here is the result of a Google search for "circumcision". (I'm using plain Google rather than Google Scholar in case general usage differs from scholarly usage.) Of the ten true search results I get on the first page (excluding the news results and paid links, etc), all of the results refer to the procedures affecting males. On the second page there is one result that appears to be about "female circumcision". On the third page there are two results that appears to be about "female circumcision". So of the thirty "most relevant" pages for "circumcision" (as judged by Google's algorithms), 27 (90%) are about the procedure affecting the male. [The following clarification is from a slightly later post:] Sorry, I'm making an assumption that I should have made explicit. Since Google have built their business on the quality of their information retrieval systems, and since their results have a reputation for being good, I'm assuming that these results are reasonably "good". That is, these results are roughly what people are looking to find when they type "circumcision". Do you think this is a reasonable assumption?
And I continued in 13:56, 27 January 2008:
I would imagine that people typing "male circumcision" are looking for information about (male) circumcision. However, "male circumcision" seems to be used less frequently than "circumcision". Google returns 406,000 results for this exact phrase ("male circumcision"), whereas it returns 6,970,000 for "circumcision" (376,000 match the exact phrase "female circumcision"). Roughly speaking (and bearing in mind the fact that these are estimates based upon assumptions), "circumcision" seems to be used 17 times as often as "male circumcision", and in 90% of cases seems to have the same meaning.
What you've shown, Jake, is meaningless. It seems extremely likely that articles say "male circumcision" once, or use "the circumcision of males" or "the removal of the foreskin" or some other disambiguating language, and then repeat the established central idea as "circumcision" for brevity in the rest of the article.[Jake correctly points out below this isn't what is measured. -BW] The fact that female circumcision is taboo and obscure in the West further explains your data. As a perfectly analogous Google search for "penis" would also show, by your argument, that the penis article should change its definition of penis to indicate that a penis is a "human penis." Since that is absurd, your argument is absurd. Your Google searches do not prove your claim or are even evidence for it. Further, as you argued in female genital cutting, the more popular term is not necessarily the most neutral term. I do not know why you abandon and oppose the principle you so eloquently argued there, here. Blackworm (talk) 00:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, you appear to misunderstand. The above figures are the number of articles containing each phrase, not the number of times the phrase occurs. Your analogy is faulty because you fail to understand the difference between words and concepts. In the case of "penis", there is a single concept (the male reproductive organ). In the case of "circumcision", there is a word that can describe several concepts, including the removal of the penile foreskin, the removal of the internal labia (according to one of the dictionary definitions you cite), or the removal of the clitoris (according to another). Finally, I neither abandon nor oppose the principle you mention: calling the removal of the penile foreskin "circumcision" is not in any way non-neutral. Jakew (talk) 10:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Also -- I didn't trust your research so I verified it. Indeed, the page which is linked as #5 in a Google search for "circumcision" (CIRP) has "female circumcision" on it. So does the page linked as #8 -- "How is Female Circumcision Trivialized?" is the phrase. So does #10, NOCIRC, when they write at the top that their goal is to provide information "about circumcision and genital cutting of male, female, and intersex infants and children." I hate to have to question and verify your findings, Jake, only to see the basic facts you use shown to be incorrect. Blackworm (talk) 00:17, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, it would have been helpful if you had provided a link to your search results. Presumably you did not use the link I provided in my original message - I don't know what the results for that search were in January, but as of today, #5 is at www.bbc.co.uk, #8 is at www.timesonline.co.uk, and #10 is at besttreatments.bmj.com. Alternatively, could you provide a link to the pages you name, so that I can evaluate them to see whether they are about "female circumcision" or whether they merely contain incidental mention of the phrase? Jakew (talk) 10:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry Jake, of course you're correct about how search results appear. I suspect you are using google.co.uk, where I am using google.com. Search results seem to be localized. The three links focus on male circumcision, and contain information on female circumcision. Again, though, this argues backwards -- one would expect most searches on the word "penis" to be about human penises, but that doesn't mean that an article on the topic of the human penis could be properly named "penis." A human penis is not what a penis is, just like male circumcision isn't what circumcision is. Blackworm (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, I have no idea why we throw out the dictionary for this article. I don't think your statement, "it provides merely a definition, not any statement about 'circumcision'" is logical at all. Someone who knows what circumcision is (according to its dictionary definition) comes to Wikipedia and is surprised to learn that what he or she "knows" isn't true at all. It makes no sense.
I agree that we should consider reasonable ambiguity. I believe that reliable sources demonstrate again and again that the ambiguity is reasonable. Even the WHO seems to agree by stating "male circumcision" over and over in its documents.
I don't understand why you seem to state your support for the renaming of this article to "male circumcision," and yet seem to argue against that position in discussion. If I'm not understanding you properly, could you please re-iterate the reasoning behind your support of changing the title to "male circumcision," or declare your opposition to the renaming?
I cannot see how you can possibly argue that the word "and" in "male and female circumcision" implies two topics in the source I quoted -- if you noticed, in the remainder of the sentence I quoted, the word "circumcision" is used again, and it is clear the author uses "circumcision" in that instance to mean "male and female circumcision."
You ask, given that the topic is the removal of the penile foreskin, what is the obvious (easily recognised & intuitively linked) title? The clear answer is "male circumcision." If you argue that "circumcision" is the answer, I can see that point of view, but you have not addressed "minimum ambiguity" with that example. In your second question, you write: Second, how much ambiguity is truly present? If someone were to type in "circumcision", how likely is it that they would actually be looking for female genital cutting? In this part, your second question ("how likely is it") cannot provide any clue as to the answer to the first question ("how much ambiguity is truly present"). That is an error. Referring again to my "penis" example, if the article were about the human penis, and most people typing "penis" were interested in reading about human penises, that would still not indicate that an article about human penises could be titled "penis" with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity. Female circumcision is obscure in the English speaking world, and indeed more people are interested in reading about the circumcision of males (it being generally legal, and widely performed in the English-speaking world, in contrast to the circumcision of females); but many, many English speakers recognize that the topic of circumcision encompasses the circumcision of both males and females. The ambiguity is not at a reasonable minimum. Blackworm (talk) 23:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, I'm not throwing out the dictionary, but I'm making a distinction between on the one hand a definition, which is an assertion about what a word means, and on the other hand a statement about a topic, which provides information about the real world. A definition provides no facts. To write an encyclopedia article, we need a certain amount of facts. I concede: we have one sentence (the second ref you quote) which provides information about circumcision-in-general. We would need several sources with perhaps several paragraphs each to be able to write an encyclopedia article.
I'm not arguing against changing the name of this article to "male circumcision". I weakly support changing the name to "Male circumcision" with "Circumcision" being a redirect to "Male circumcision", for the reason that a web search on "circumcision" brings up many female circumcision articles and that I've seen one article with "circumcision" (or a form of the word, I forget) unqualified in the title but meant female circucmcision. However, I oppose the creation of an article on the topic of circumcision-in-general unless I'm convinced that there is sufficient source material for it, which I'm not convinced of currently (and perhaps not even then – there may be other reasons not to). Blackworm, would you consider it an improvement to change the name to "Male circumcision" while keeping "Circumcision" as a redirect, or is your sole or primary purpose in renaming this page in order to be able to establish an article on circumcision-in-general?
Thank you for clarifying, Coppertwig. Yes, I would consider it a large improvement to change the title to "male circumcision" and redirect "circumcision" to it. Blackworm (talk) 15:41, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I would also consider it an improvement because I do not consider the ambiguity of "circumcision" to be "reasonably minimal". Beejaypii (talk) 17:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Noted. However consensus does not say all editors must agree and common sense dictates you can never please everyone. Why do you feel your opinion outweighs the majority? Garycompugeek (talk) 18:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't feel that my opinion outweighs those of others, Gary, but it appears that, so far, there is no consensus to make such a change (please remember that consensus does not mean "majority vote"). If you wish to gain a consensus, there are methods for gaining outside input on a proposed move (for example, see requested moves). Jakew (talk) 18:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been argued many times already, but just to point out, Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines circumcise as: "to cut off the foreskin of (a male) or the clitoris of (a female)," my Mac's dictionary says similarly: "cut off the foreskin of (a young boy or man, esp. a baby) as a religious rite, esp. in Judaism and Islam, or as a medical treatment.
• cut off the clitoris, and sometimes the labia, of (a girl or young woman) as a traditional practice among some peoples."
It quite clearly includes clitoridectomy and labiadectomy. I'd imagine recent dictionaries might say the same (as opposed to the one from 1913 cited in this article). "Male circumcision" would be appropriate, of course with a redirect from "circumcision".Gimmethoseshoes (talk) 03:09, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Requested move
The following is a closed discussion of the move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
No consensus to move. See the discussion below, where I asked if the move discussion ought to be relisted. Nobody spoke up for that. I didn't find any arguments offered that were against policy, but I did notice one IP participating: 71.176.86.220 (talk·contribs). In determining whether consensus for a move was present I decided to follow Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Rough consensus, which advises that votes made anonymously should not be included. Given that, we find slightly more logged-in editors opposing the move than favoring it. we have six 'votes' in favor of the move and five 'votes' against it. Different rationales were offered. The one that (to me) was easiest to understand was that the reader should be led to their intended target article in the fewest total number of clicks. Others offered reasoning in the form of Google hits for various combinations of words, to show what the most likely search term would be for the person coming here for the first time. I didn't perceive any consensus as to which of these ways of analyzing the problem was the best. Blackworm has argued that there were irregularities in the move debate. I did notice an anonymous editor trying to close the debate himself, which I notice that Blackworm reverted. I believe that was wise. Except for that, I did not perceive that any policy violations occurred. I'm closing the debate as No Consensus. EdJohnston (talk) 20:11, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment. Clearly it didn't change the opinion of the closing admin, but the above support/oppose count is horrendously off - it was seven plus IP in support and eight opposed, or 7:8, not 6:5 as stated above. 199.125.109.58 (talk) 01:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with*'''Support'''or*'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions. This poll is an attempt to gain consensus through discussion, and not to find a majority view.
Oppose. Per WP:TITLE, "Generally, article naming should prefer what the greatest number of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature." One can get a reasonable idea of the term people would recognise, would use for searches, and would intuitively use for linking by examining the frequency of use. Google returns 7,560,000 hits for "circumcision", compared with 452,000 for "male circumcision" (there are 504,000 for "female circumcision"). As we can verify by examining the hits on the first page of results for "circumcision", most results are primarily or entirely about the removal of the penile foreskin. From this, we may conclude that a) the term "circumcision" is used approximately 17x as often as "male circumcision", and b) that when it is used there is very little ambiguity: with a few exceptions, "circumcision" usually means removal of the penile foreskin. (The term "female circumcision" is more frequently used to refer to female genital cutting, and redirects to that article.) Per WP:TITLE and WP:UCN, then, the obvious title is "circumcision". While I acknowledge that there is a small amount of ambiguity, per WP:MOSDAB, the "recommended practice is to use a hatnote on the article for the primary meaning to link directly to the secondary meaning", which is done. Jakew (talk) 19:49, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Wikipedia is not an institute for language reform. This is enough to oppose, but the usage of "female circumcision", implied by this, is indeed both controversial and probably ceasing to be standard usage. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson21:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. I decided to try another google search, but this time not searching for the bare words and phrases "circumcision", "male circumcision", "female circumcision". I've tried to devise a set of searches which give some idea about how frequently these terms are used as the subjects of sentences. I've combined them with the word "is", e.g. "circumcision is", "male circumcision is", and "female circumcision is". The google search results are as follows: there are 291,000 hits for "circumcision is", 68,300 hits for "male circumcision is", and 68,100 for "female circumcision is". Furthermore, the third hit on the first page of the "circumcision is" search is about female circumcision, as is the sixth. I'm bracing myself to be shot down in flames here, but I'm going to tentatively suggest that unless we can explain why there would be a statistically significant difference between "circumcision", "male circumcision" and "female circumcision" in terms of how these terms function as the subject of the verb to be, then the efficacy of the simple word and clause search which has been used thus far to demonstrate why the title of this article should not be changed to "male circumcision" has perhaps been called into question. From the search counts I've already cited, I conclude that the term "circumcision" is used no more than approximately 4.2 times as often as the phrase "male circumcision", and probably less in view of the presence of female circumcision related hits on the first page of the "circumcision is" search. The ambiguity is therefore not minimal. Beejaypii (talk) 23:04, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment. Beejaypii, since the results for "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is" would be duplicated in the results for "circumcision is," then in order to compare "male circumcision is" and "[some word other than "male" and "female," or no qualifier] circumcision is" we must subtract those two totals from the 291000 hits, leaving 154600 hits, or a factor of 2.3 -- not 4.2. Definite a case of "reasonable ambiguity," per WP:TITLE policy. Blackworm (talk) 08:14, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. Circumcision can be male or female. "English sources typically but just because this is the English speaking Wikipedia does not mean we do not take the entire world into account. We cannot pretend it does not exist. Sources about female circumcision do not state "female circumcision" in the article but quote circumcision as used here. Additionally the act of circumcision or to circumcise is a verb. It does not take gender into account." Garycompugeek (talk) 01:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Circumcision still basically means male circumcision. Female circumcision is a controversial, vague and politically motivated neologism and not standard English; Male circumcision is unambiguous (agree on that part) but apart from that has similar problems. Andrewa (talk) 03:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment.. I feel the same way about "Male Circumcision". Regardless of our POVs the encyclopedia must remain neutral and simply report facts. There is "Female Circumcision" whether we like it or not and that lends to the argument name change to "Male Circumcision". Garycompugeek (talk) 18:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't see the logic of that at all. If Male Circumcision is a controversial, vague and politically motivated neologism and not standard English, it's hardly a good article title. No change of vote. Andrewa (talk) 17:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Except that it isn't, and neither is "female circumcision." See below. I don't expect you to change your vote, though. Blackworm (talk)
I respect your views on the matter, but what I was trying to clarify was the logic. Garycompugeek had said he agreed with me, but that didn't seem to be reflected in the conclusion reached, so I wondered whether there was a misunderstanding... possibly on my part. Disagree with your edit summary, but it's certainly a battle at times. Andrewa (talk) 19:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Correction, I'm not sure what you mean by "Female circumcicion" not being standard english (look it up in any standard english dictionary) but assumed you did not agree with the practice of female circumcision as I do not agree with anytype of body mutilation. If I mistook your meaning I apologize. Regardless of controversy there is male and female circumcision and our article titles should demonstrate that fact. Garycompugeek (talk) 12:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
And I do not respect your views on the matter, since reliable evidence to the contrary is provided below, and you have not provided any evidence at all supporting your wild assertion of a politically motivated "neologism." Since I believe your position to be based on a premise clearly shown to be in error, I cannot respect it, or you for maintaining your view after your error has been pointed out to you. I guess logic ends where POV begins, though. Blackworm (talk) 00:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Uh, I said clearly that I'm talking about your assertion that phrase "female circumcision" is a "politically motivated" "neologism" -- the "neologism" part of which I disprove below by showing a source from 1910 and a source from 1837 using "circumcision" to refer to males and females. A current dictionary does the same, disproving your wild assertion of it not being "standard English." The premises of your argument for opposition have been disproven. Will you continue to assert them in light of this, or admit your mistake? Blackworm (talk) 20:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll respond to that if and when you remove the personal attacks from the phrasing. As you have previously requested others to modify their comments, it seems only fair. You might also bear in mind that, as edit summaries cannot easily be edited, it's a particularly poor place to make these attacks, as you have done more than once. Andrewa (talk) 00:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. Circumcision is performed on males and females. The whitewashing of the common term "female circumcision" from Wikipedia begins in the female genital cutting article (the true neologism and demonstrably not the most common term used), continues to circumcision (which defines "circumcision" as strictly applicable to males, in contradiction to reliable sources), and extends (or Jakew has so attempted) to every circumcision-related article (circumcision and law, prevalence of circumcision, medical analysis of circumcision, sexual effects of circumcision). The most prominent sources, such as the WHO, recognize the non-neutrality and ethnocentrism of using "circumcision" to refer to male circumcision, which is why they routinely use the phrase "male circumcision," as do most journals. This whitewashing on Wikipedia, relative to reliable sources, is evidence of a non-neutral embrace of both recentism and activism (pro-male circumcision activism, combined with anti-female circumcision activism), and is thus a violation of WP:NPOV] policy. I find myself calling loudly for this article's title to be changed for the same reason another editor opposes it: Wikipedia is not an institute for language reform. You may feel that female circumcision should be called "female genital mutilation" (cause "that's just what it is") and you may feel that male circumcision is "just, well, circumcision, no big deal, whatever..." But that's your POV. Others exist, even if all others who don't seem to share that exact opinion are shunned around here. This New York Times article (2008) shows what I'm talking about. The article says, "Over the course of that Sunday morning, more than 200 girls were circumcised, many of them appearing to be under the age of 5. Meanwhile, in a nearby building, more than 100 boys underwent a traditional circumcision as well." Finally, circumcision as applicable to males and females was used in a very respected medical journal article almost 100 years ago: S.L. Kistler, Rapid bloodless circumcision of male and female, and its technic, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 54, 28 May 1910, p. 1782-3. It doesn't seem a particularly exception article for that usage, either. Which is the "neologism" again? Blackworm (talk) 07:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow you at all. Looking through the Google Scholar search on the three terms FC, FGC and FGM I find that most all articles refer to FGC and FGM -- and so I wonder how FGC could be a neologism if it is the most common term currently used, and has 1.6 Million hits on Google. I agree with you that how we feel about it is of little importance, and that Wikipedia as a means of reform should be avoided. The reason you should oppose the change is because "Male Circumcision" as a term is the Neologism (almost all of the google scholar articles I found used the term "Circumcision" a,d almost none of them used the term "Male Cirumcision". Current (last 10-20 years) research articles do not use the term male and female circumcision. Maybe that was true in 1910, it sure isn't now. Atom (talk) 14:21, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
This is sheer nonsense. I don't know what Google Scholar searches you're doing, but I hit the following numbers of hits:
Can anyone tell me, why are we are still discussing this? If the article is titled "Female Genital Cutting" And a majority of scholars and researchers call it FGC/FGM in their articles, and the term is used through the Internet 1,570,000 to 625,000 (almost three to one) and the next two most common terms (Female Circumcision and Female Genital Mutilation) used both link to that article. It seems to me that there are people who are more concerned about pushing their term, rather than using the terminology that is most commonly used by most people and most researchers. (My preferred term would be "Female Genital Mutilation".) Atom (talk) 16:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
All the numbers posted above, from User:Atomaton, are bogus because he does not understand the difference between an "all the words" search (what he performed), and an "exact phrase" search (which I performed). Clearly a paper that happens to have the word "female," the word "genital," and the word "cutting" in it isn't necessarily referencing "female genital cutting." To check for the latter you have to construct your search properly, by using quotes around the phrase to be matched. Atom, in light of your grave and costly error, please delete your entire comment from this section as a show of good faith. Blackworm (talk) 22:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
One more, search on "circumcision" in Google Scholar and look at the snippets of text for the first couple of pages of results. How many say "male circumcision" right off the bat, to disambiguate? Quite a few. ("Neonatal circumcision" disambiguates too, as the circumcision of females is not neonatal.) Blackworm (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
So you are suggesting we change the term to "Male Circumcision" to exacerbate the disambiguation? If the trend in research in the past ten years is away from Female Circumcision, and now away from Female Genital Mutilation, and towards FGC and FGC/FGM, does it make sense to change the existing FGC article to the less favored and declining, "Female Circumcision" term? Atom (talk) 16:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Disambiguation is a GOOD thing, Atom, not something to be "exacerbated." Your comments about "less favoured" are original research, and more relevant to that article, not this article. Now I see where your opposition to this move comes from, however -- you embrace ambiguity on this subject. Ambiguity breeds ignorance, and ignorance is strength. The WHO itself, the biggest and most powerful (known) advocate, calls it "male circumcision." The map that was added to this article during this move request, saying "circumcision" with no qualifier in the caption and in the image, was perfectly timed to influence this move request's outcome by bolstering this article's appropriation of the term "circumcision" to mean male circumcision. This, despite the fact that the title of the SOURCE of the information contained on the map clearly says "male circumcision." Let the fraud continue. Blackworm (talk) 22:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. The Webster's dictionary defines circumcision as a procedure done on males and females and that's what all English speakers understand it to mean. There are no grounds for opposition to this move because this is not an issue of whether male or female circumcision is worse than the other; the issue is whether circumcision is done to males and females. Jookieapc (talk) 04:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. I changed my mind, for the following reason. While I still think it would be a slight improvement to have this article named "Male circumcision" with "Circumcision" being a redirect to it if it remains a redirect, nevertheless I now realize that what would probably happen in practice is that it would not stably remain a redirect but a variety of people would keep coming along and trying to be helpful by changing the redirect into a disambiguation page or a short article, leading perhaps to edit wars and to instability in the way readers would be able to find this article, and being a disservice to the reader who, in the majority of cases I believe, would have to find the right link and do another page load before arriving at the desired information, and who in many cases might abandon the search before arriving at this article. One might argue whether it's of much importance to serve the reader who would abandon the search for the sake of a few extra seconds; I argue that it is. People doing web searches often spend only fractions of a second considering a specific link, and I would much prefer that the reader's reaction be "Oh, an informative Wikipedia article; maybe Wikipedia is useful after all" than "Oh, another short or content-free (i.e. disambiguation page) Wikipedia page; Wikipedia is a waste of time." It's not clear to me whether or not Wikipedia needs an article on the human penis specifically as opposed to an article on penes of mammals, but I'm convinced that it is good to have an article on male circumcision, and that we have a carefully edited and well-organized one here. I believe that the majority of people searching for such information will use "circumcision" as the search term (whether in the Wikipedia search box or in a search engine), and I want them to be able to find it as effortlessly as possible; the long page load time is already one barrier. Therefore, all things considered, I prefer keeping the current title, "Circumcision". I didn't intend to start a whole thread or a whole discussion. Someone inserted the section heading "Nameing Conventions" above my comment, which I had placed on this page at Blackworm's request. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 11:01, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment.. That someone was me Coppertwig. Your logic for flip flopping is quite flawed. Do you seriously believe others will cease trying to change the names of this article and female genital cutting? We are trying to impose a reality check here. In reality there is male and female circumcision. Its a fact. It's not going to go away whether we like it or not. It's is not our place to pass judgment. Just report clear unbias fact. Garycompugeek (talk) 12:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you that there is male and female circumcision, although female circumcision is not always referred to by that phrase. I suppose people will likely continue to try to change the names of the articles. I agree that it's not our place to pass judgement. I don't understand where you think there's a flaw in my logic. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 14:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig if you agree with me why the opposition? This discussion started out with me agreeing with you the title was ambiguous. As for clarity I was referring to searching for information about circumcision. What you expect to find depends on your POV. Sure male circumcision is more common than female circumcision but the very fact of its existence create ambiguity to the single term. Garycompugeek (talk) 15:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
If you tell me which parts of my rationale above you have difficulty following, or which parts you agree with and which parts you disagree with, I might be able to explain more fully those parts of my arguments. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I assure you, I had no intention of belittling you; I'm sorry for any misunderstanding along those lines. I'm having difficulty following your argument. You said my argument was "flawed", but I don't see anywhere in your posts where you seem to me to be pointing to any specific part of my argument. I agreed with the things you said, but don't see them as indicating any flaw in my logic; my logic still looks logical to me. I don't understand this sentence in one of your posts: "As for clarity I was referring to searching for information about circumcision." I don't know what earlier comment of yours it's referring to, and I'm not sure what "as for clarity" means. If I have trouble following your argument that may be my problem, though I hope you'll try again explaining and that I'll catch your meaning this time. One problem may be that when someone (e.g. me) disagrees with an argument, they can have trouble even understanding it; people formulate concepts differently in their minds so the same words may not mean quite the same thing to different people, and it can be hard to pin down where the misunderstanding lies. For example, to me, if the logic of an argument is flawed, it should be possible to identify a specific part of the argument where the flaw lies. Maybe you think of flaws in arguments in some different way. Or maybe the difficulty in understanding is something else entirely, with neither of us realizing what's causing it. Maybe it would help if someone else tries explaining to me what you're trying to say.☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
I will assume good faith Coppertwig no apologies necessary but I do appreciate your reply. This logic seems faulty "nevertheless I now realize that what would probably happen in practice is that it would not stably remain a redirect but a variety of people would keep coming along and trying to be helpful by changing the redirect into a disambiguation page or a short article" and I do not understand your conclusion. I mean no offense and respect your opinion. Sorry if I came off a little hard. Garycompugeek (talk) 20:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for AGF, Garycompugeek – I appreciate it. Do you mean that you think people would not change the redirect into a disambiguation page or short article? See also my reply to Fyslee. I apologize for any less-than-civil wording or punctuation in my comments – I'm trying to avoid such but am not perfect. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose We should focus on the content and accessibility of the 'circumcision' and 'female genital cutting' articles rather than the titles themselves. In a perfect encyclopedia everything would be perfectly named. Wikipedia can't be any more organized/structured than the real world. In this real world, alteration of male and female genitals does frequently take place regardless of the many reasons and many opinions for or against. In western society alteration of males has traditionally been called 'circumcision'. We should leave this article with that name and put a redirect from 'Male circumcision' to the article. Alteration of female genitals in western culture has been called a variety of things, but only rarely by a few been called 'circumcision'. It has been called Female Genital Mutilation, Female Circumcision and Female Genital Cutting primarily. The wikipedia article on the subject discusses it quite thoroughly. There certainly is no clear agreement on which title is 'best'. What is most important is that 1) The article goes into details to explain the many perspectives 2) The article is accessible (can be found by people who are interested). Because of the politics involved we will never have an article title that everyone will agree with. Reading the literature and research (at least on the english language) on both the female and male topics it is clear that regardless of perspective most english speaking people do not call what is done to females 'circumcision'. Hence changing the article to be called 'Male circumcision' to differatiate from a future renaming of the Article on Female Genital Mutilation to be called 'Female Circumcision' that will never happen is folly and unnecessary. Since most people use the terminology 'circumcision' as applying to males, and the term "female genital cutting' for females. We should leave the articles named that and redirect all other names people might use to those articles. Atom (talk) 15:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Oppose There are thousands of years of history behind circumcision referring to the removal of the foreskin. "Female circumcision" is a recent coinage, probably devised to allow Western audiences to relate to a practice that is not common in the West. --Groggy DiceT | C13:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment Groggy Dice, according to my dictionary, the English language word circumcision dates from around the 13th century. Also, "female circumcision" is not a recent coinage (unless by "recent" you mean "almost a century ago"), as Blackworm has demonstrated in the discussion below with his reference to a JAMA article from 1910 titled Rapid bloodless circumcision of male and female, and its technic. Furthermore, what we are trying to establish here is whether or not the word circumcision is sufficiently ambiguous to justify renaming this article "Male circumcision", with a disambiguation page at "Circumcision". A test of prevalence of the terms "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is", within the set of occurrences of the phrase "circumcision is", via google web searches, has already been suggested by me in the discussions below. The current results of such searches are: "circumcision is" 290,000; "male circumcision is" 61,700; and "female circumcision is" 47,300. This suggests that, of all the articles webpages which refer to circumcision, in proportion to the prevalence of the very common English language construct, NP is (NP meaning noun or noun phrase), approximately one sixth also refer to "female circumcision", and a little over one fifth also refer to "male circumcision". This suggests that the word circumcision is significantly ambiguous. Consider this advice from wp:title:
Convention: Please, do not write or put an article on a page with an ambiguously named title as though that title had no other meanings. If all possible words have multiple meanings, go with the rule of thumb of naming guidelines and use the more popular term.
In view of that advice, and in view of the fact that the title "Circumcision" appears to be ambiguous, whereas "Male circumcision" is not ambiguous, the article should be renamed "Male circumcision".
One might argue that disambiguating language (such as "male" in the phrase "male circumcision") might still be used even when there's very little possibility of ambiguity, and this is true, to some extent. Let's perform an equivalent search test with the phrases "penis is" and "male penis is" to test that. The phrase "penis is" returns 2,530,000 hits, but "male penis is" returns only 13,800, suggesting that, though disambiguating language may be used where ambiguity is virtually non-existent, it's uncommon. This perhaps strengthens the evidence I provide above for significant ambiguity of the the word circumcision. Beejaypii (talk) 17:33, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
The idea is at least 170 years old. "An account of what he calls the circumcision of females as well as of males by some of the African tribes is given by Bowman in his 'Description of the Coast of Guinea,' English translation 2nd edit pp. 179, 180, 329, 414."Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge -- published 1837). What to do when demonstrable falsehoods (female circumcision" being a neologism, as now two editors who oppose this move have asserted) are the basis for objections to making article content and organization neutral? (I'm assuming these two editors will not change their votes.) So far, the opposition stands on that, and also a fear that things may "go further" (paraphrasing). It's nonsense. We are erring by admission (at least, Coppertwig's admission) on one side on one POV, not because the actual, current proposal under debate isn't good, but for fear of a slippery slope, or that people may eventually shift the POV "too far" the other way. That is clearly anathema to WP:NPOV, and I'm disillusioned by the lack of quality of the arguments of the opposition to this move. Blackworm (talk) 04:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Support for two articles (Male circumcision and the current redirect to Female genital cutting) and suggest that the current title of this article be used for a disambiguation page, with links to the appropriate articles dealing with various aspects of the subject. Disambiguation solves the problems and provides better service to readers without giving undue weight to "female circumcision". -- Fyslee / talk16:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Could you explain how that would provide "better service to readers" in your opinion? In my opinion it would be worse. As a reader, I want to be able to type in a simple, convenient search term such as "circumcision" and arrive immediately at an informative article; I don't want to have to go through disambiguation pages unnecessarily. Hatnotes (as in this case) and pages with names like "Circumcision (disambiguation)" are used in order to reduce the amount of time readers spend navigating disambiguation pages. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:54, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, when you type in "circumcision" and "arrive immediately at an informative article", do you expect that article to deal exclusively with "male circumcision", and, more to the point, would everybody? Beejaypii (talk) 18:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, you say that "Hatnotes (as in this case) and pages with names like 'Circumcision (disambiguation)' are used in order to reduce the amount of time readers spend navigating disambiguation pages". I may have misunderstood, or you may not have expressed what you actually meant to, but you seem to have claimed that disambiguation pages are used to reduce the amount of time spent navigating disambiguation pages. Is that what you meant? And if it is, what do you mean? Beejaypii (talk) 18:18, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, by a "service to readers" I mean that readers are not directed (by a redirect from Circumcision) directly to this article about Male circumcision. It would be a disservice to force many of them to take an undeclared detour. Since a growing and significant (currently) minority of readers may be looking for the neologism Female genital cutting article (even though the redirect "Female genital mutilation" is by far the most used expression, yet we favor a neologism....hmmm...), they will have to backtrack or by other means find it. By using a disambiguation page, we are giving them the option, and we are educating them to the fact that the term "circumcision" is used in more then the traditional way. We can also list "See also"s on that page. Time spent is a non-issue. We wikilink alot and wikilinking "wastes" no more time than disambiguating. I have never heard wasted "amount of time" used as an argument against disambiguation pages, but of course that doesn't mean it isn't used, it just isn't considered a relevant argument most of the time. I also support that we continue to use the existing redirects (Female genital mutilation and Female circumcision). Since "circumcision" is the umbrella term of all these various articles, it is logical that it become a disambiguation page, much like the Subluxation page. -- Fyslee / talk19:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, Fyslee. I agree with you that it's good to avoid forcing a reader to take a detour. That's what I mean when I talk about wasted time. Maybe you see some difference I don't see between taking a detour and wasted time, or maybe there's something I don't understand in your comment.
This is how I see it: it's about optimizing searches. Every time a reader is forced to follow one more link before getting where they want, there's a good chance they'll give up the search and go to some other website to try to get their information. This is partly because the reader doesn't know whether they're going to get any useful information at all or just a string of disambiguation pages, stubs and other disappointments.
Suppose three-quarters of the people typing in "circumcision" are interested in male circumcision, and one-quarter are interested in female circumcision. Let's compare two options: the current system, or making "Circumcision" a disambiguation page. Under the current system, three-quarters of the readers get where they want immediately with no extra links to follow, and one-quarter get the hatnote at the top of the page and have to follow one extra link to get where they want. Therefore, the average number of extra links per reader is one-quarter. With the disambiguation page, every reader typing in "circumcision" gets to the disambiguation page and has to follow one link to get to where they want, so the average number of extra links per reader is one, which is four times as many as under the current system -- definitely worse. Even if different proportions of readers are assumed, it's still worse than the current setup.
When I mentioned pages with "(disambiguation)" in the title, I meant that, for example, having a page called Derivative (disambiguation) rather than having a disambiguation page titled Derivative can save readers time. This is how it works: this naming convention is used when there is one meaning of the phrase that is used more often than all other meanings put together. Suppose three-quarters of the people typing in "derivative" want the math article Derivative, and one-quarter want one of the other articles listed on the derivative disambiguation page. Then, it saves readers detours to name the math article simply "Derivative". In that case, three-quarters of the readers go immediately where they want. One-quarter follow the hatnote to the disambiguation page and then follow another link to the page they want, making two extra links to follow per reader; the average number of extra links to follow per reader is therefore one-half. If, on the other hand, the disambiguation page were named "Derivative", then every reader typing in "derivative" would have to follow one extra link, making the number of extra links (or detours, if you will) one, which would be twice as many as with the current system for "Derivative". I believe that the people who wrote the guidelines took such factors into account and that that's why they wrote here"When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other ... then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top." as well as the section Disambiguation links which describes the use of hatnotes as a method of disambiguation. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Support. This article is clearly about male circumcision, and there clearly is such a concept as female circumcision in common use. There is no reason why this male viewpoint should dominate the 'namespace'. --Nigelj (talk) 19:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment The term used by researchers most commonly is Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation, see previous discussions about that. No one disputes that it has been called that, and still is. It is just not the most common term used.
Support changing this article to "Male Circumcision" and having "Circumcision" lead to a disambiguation page with links to male and female circumcision (with the latter redirecting to "Female Genital Cutting". To me this seems like the simplest and most intuitive solution. I was surprised to find this page titled only "circumcision" but the article referring only to male circumcision. If the term "circumcision" on its own was unambiguous, why would the phrase "male circumcision" be so widely used? There are 491,000 hits for that phrase on google.com. 71.176.86.220 (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Clicking a link on a disambiguation page is not exact;u an incredibly time-consuming and difficult activity, and for a term like "circumcision", should be expected.71.176.86.220 (talk) 14:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Discussion
Any additional comments:
Regarding the comments of Beejaypii above, the additional searches suggest that the relative frequency of usage in constructions of the form "X is..." is somewhat less than the overall 17:1 ratio. It is difficult to know why there should be such a difference, though the evidence basically confirms that the term "circumcision" is used more frequently than "male circumcision". It is erroneous, however, to infer that the term "circumcision" is ambiguous. "Circumcision", "male circumcision", and "female circumcision" are distinct terms (just as "baked alaska" is distinct from "Alaska"), and we cannot determine that the first is ambiguous from the frequency of usage of the last two. To determine whether "circumcision is" is ambiguous, we must exclude "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is". If there were significant ambiguity in the term "circumcision", we would expect to find a large number of results that were about female genital cutting. Here is the result of such a search. If we examine the results, we can see that all (if I am not mistaken) of those on the first page are discussing the removal of the penile foreskin. Jakew (talk) 11:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Wouldn't you have to discount those results from your search which also refer to male circumcision in a disambiguating way in some manner? Let's examine the pages returned on the first page of your search results. The second page returned includes "male circumcision" in the title, the fifth seemingly includes the phrase "male infant circumcision" in the text (the search results indicate this, we'd apparently need a subscription to the linked website itself to delve further), the sixth has the phrase "Circumcision in men" at the very beginning of the main text (an obvious disambiguation), we apparently can't examine the text of the seventh link without paying for it, the ninth includes the phrase "male and female circumcision" in the title, and the title of the tenth search result is "your son's circumcision" (and further examination of the page in question in this case reveals a reference to a leaflet titled "circumcision in men"). Beejaypii (talk) 17:44, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Not to mention the absurd first words of the hatnote of this article: "This article is about male circumcision." If it's about male circumcision, it should be called "male circumcision," per WP:TITLE. The hatnote used to say, For the practice sometimes referred to as "female circumcision," see female genital cutting. After Jakew and his supporters argued for fifteen pages that that statement was neutral, and not at all implying that female circumcision isn't really circumcision, they finally agreed to change it to the current form, hiding the clear non-neutral POV the earlier authors of this article title and article organization enforce on it, and all circumcision-related articles. Blackworm (talk) 18:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, I think you must be under the mistaken impression that the search excludes "female circumcision" but not "male circumcision". If you look at the search again, you'll see that it excludes the exact phrases "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is". The purpose of this is not to exclude pages where it is possible to determine the meaning from context - indeed, this would be counterproductive, since the intent is to determine what is meant when the term "circumcision" is normally used. The purpose is to differentiate between the current ("circumcision") and proposed ("male circumcision") titles. Jakew (talk) 18:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
You're wrong to think that I am under the impression that your search excludes "female circumcison" but not "male circumcision". I understand how you formulated your search and have done so since I first examined that particular contribution of yours.
I'm glad to hear that your purpose was not "to exclude pages where it is possible to determine the meaning from context", because if that had been your purpose you would have failed to achieve your goal: that would be impossible to achieve without a search engine fluent in English.
You said:
To determine whether "circumcision is" is ambiguous, we must exclude "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is". If there were significant ambiguity in the term "circumcision", we would expect to find a large number of results that were about female genital cutting. Here is the result of such a search. If we examine the results, we can see that all (if I am not mistaken) of those on the first page are discussing the removal of the penile foreskin.
In my opinion, you made a mistake there: significant ambiguity would actually be indicated by a large number of results either about female circumcision, or about male circumcision but including disambiguating language. A large number of such results were indeed returned. Beejaypii (talk) 22:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Could you explain what you mean by "disambiguating language", Beejaypii? To clarify, I am not asking you to explain what the term means, but how you distinguish between it and the normal, slightly redundant contextual information appearing in English prose that allow the reader to easily determine what is meant. For example, while it is possible that the person who wrote "your son's circumcision" may have meant "your son's (as opposed to your daughter's) circumcision", how do we know that it was intended to disambiguate, and not, say, something slightly redundant like "your son's penis"? To express the problem another way, if we deem every reference made by the author to males or penes to be disambiguating language, and exclude these sources accordingly, then how are we to assess what the authors mean by "circumcision" in the few documents that remain? Jakew (talk) 23:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, if we were able to exclude sources where the context tells us whether "circumcision" refers to male or female circumcision, and if there are still any sources left after we do that, we wouldn't be able to assess what the authors mean by circumcision precisely because the term is ambiguous.
Let's take a step back a little bit here. Comparison of the number of results returned by searches for the phrases "circumcision is", "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is" should give us an idea of the relative prevalences of the disambiguating phrases "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is" within the set of all occurences of the ambiguous and inclusive phrase "circumcision is". Furthermore, there should be no significant difference in the likelihood of "male circumcision" or "female circumcision" functioning as the subject of the third person singular present tense form of the verb to be, i.e. is, in articles which discuss them. And we don't need to examine context when considering the search results for "female circumcision is" and "male circumcision is" because we already know which type of circumcision they refer to. Your search method, excluding "male circumcision is" and "female circumcision is" doesn't tell us anything useful unless we examine a substantial portion of the results returned in order to see what the context is in each case, because the context could still include "female circumcision" without that expression actually being used: phrases such as "circumcision of females", "both types of circumcision, male and female" could be used, to cite just two examples.
I suggest that the results of the search methodology I proposed provide us with a useful guide to relative ambiguity, and the results returned when that methodology is put into practice demonstrate that the ambiguity of "circumcision" is considerable. Beejaypii (talk) 18:28, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I must admit that I had to read your comment several times before it made sense, Beejaypii. However, I think I've worked out the source of the problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are assuming that "circumcision" is ambiguous (which seems to beg the question), and consequently view phrases such as "male circumcision" or "your son's circumcision" as disambiguating language. In contrast, I'm trying to make as few assumptions as possible. I'm simply assuming that the terms "circumcision", "male circumcision", and "female circumcision" exist, and the purpose of the search is to isolate the first so that we can assess whether it is ambiguous in common usage. I agree with you that it is necessary to examine the results of the search. Jakew (talk) 20:57, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, do you think that the results of the search method I propose provide us with a useful guide to relative ambiguity or not? And if your answer is "no", which I suspect it will be, please explain why. Beejaypii (talk) 00:46, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
There are so many flaws in your argument, Jakew, that a complete deconstruction is impossible. I'll focus on what you said in your support, above, replacing "circumcision" with "penis" and "male circumcision" with "human penis," in order to prove, by your flawed reasoning, that "penis" should be defined in Wikipedia as "an external sexual organ of male humans" instead of the (correct) "an external sexual organ of certain biologically male organisms."
Google returns 87,400,000 hits for "penis", compared with 194,000 for "human penis" (there are 4 hits for "non-human penis"). As we can verify by examining the hits on the first page of results for "penis", most results are primarily or entirely about the human penis. From this, we may conclude that a) the term "penis" is used approximately 450x as often as "human penis, " and b) that when it is used there is very little ambiguity: with a few exceptions, "penis" usually means the human male sex organ.
— Analogous (flawed) argument for naming an article about the human penis, "penis," instead of properly defining penis as both human and non-human as the learned folks at that article have done.
This ignores, of course, the logical leaps involved in your "verifications," for example the invented criteria of "first page hits" "mostly" talking about male circumcision. They mostly talk about the circumcision of males because the circumcision of males is 1000 times more frequent than the circumcision of females, and probably hundreds of thousands of times more frequent in the West. Given that, one would expect thousands of articles on circumcision of males for every article on circumcision of females -- but even that ratio, which is not observed, would not show that "circumcision" only applies to males. We lead the reader to believe that, here, and it is a non-neutral, normative organization of material. Look at the references section of this article -- rife with references to "male circumcision." Look at the titles of the journal articles, and the text in those articles, which discuss "male circumcision." Look at the definition of "circumcision" in any dictionary. Look at how female circumcision and male circumcision are discussed in the literature, often discussed together and in the same sociological context, and compared and contrasted. Your wild claims about "distinct terms," as well as your several absurd analogies ("baked Alaska" indeed), don't hold up to any scrutiny. Blackworm (talk) 18:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Hardly! In the case of "circumcision," there is also single concept, which involves the cutting and removal of certain parts of human genitals, usually for cultural, traditional, and religious reasons. Since these genitals are different for males and females, we can further explore the subtopics of the circumcision of males ("male circumcision"), and the circumcision of females ("female circumcision"). The New York Times article I quote above shows this, as does the 1910 JAMA article. Your refusal to admit that a single concept exists, in light of reliable evidence indicating just that, is not excusable. Blackworm (talk) 18:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
In the above section, Blackworm, Coppertwig asked you, "would you consider it an improvement to change the name to "Male circumcision" while keeping "Circumcision" as a redirect, or is your sole or primary purpose in renaming this page in order to be able to establish an article on circumcision-in-general?" Your comments now seem to indicate that the latter is the case. I assure you that if I see evidence of a single concept, as opposed to a single word with a primary and (occasionally) a secondary meaning, I will take it into account. Jakew (talk) 20:19, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I haven't been able to locate the text of the JAMA article, so I can't comment about that. As far as I can tell, though, the NYT article is entirely consistent with two senses of one word, and does not imply that there is a single concept of "circumcision". Jakew (talk) 21:15, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
You mix "meanings," "concepts," and "senses" and it obfuscates the issue. The NYT say, to paraphrase: "Girls were circumcised. Boys were circumcised as well." Why would they mention boys if it were a separate concept? The dictionary I quote has ONE sense of the word "circumcise," i.e., "to cut off the foreskin of (a male) or the clitoris of (a female)."[8] Clearly circumcision is viewed as a single concept, your increasingly absurd objections and denials, as always, notwithstanding. As for the JAMA article, why do you need the text of the article? The title is Rapid bloodless circumcision of male and female, and its technic for crying out loud. Blackworm (talk) 21:28, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that we must be reading the definition differently, Blackworm. When I read "to cut off the foreskin of (a male) or the clitoris of (a female)", I see a word that can mean i) to cut off the penile foreskin or ii) to cut off the clitoris, whereas you apparently see a word that means "the cutting and removal of certain parts of human genitals". Thus, to paraphrase your paraphrase, I read the NYT as saying "girls had their clitoris removed. Boys had their foreskin removed." Mentioning both in close proximity might indicate that the author felt that they were related concepts (in name at least), but it doesn't imply that they were regarded as a single concept. Hypothetically, if the NYT had said something like "circumcision is a single concept, which involves the cutting and removal of certain parts of human genitals, usually for cultural, traditional, and religious reasons", then I would agree that the author's clear intent was to express a single concept. Jakew (talk) 23:56, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Pure insanity. The definition given above is one sense of the word -- the reliable source saw no need to subdivide it further and neither should you. Please read this page if you have trouble understanding what a sense of a word is. Or perhaps, the definition of "sense": 1: a meaning conveyed or intended : import, signification; especially : one of a set of meanings a word or phrase may bear especially as segregated in a dictionary entry. ONE meaning. ONE sense. Stop this nonsense, Jake, immediately. It is now disruptive. Blackworm (talk) 07:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, Blackworm, the source you cite used the word "or" to signify one of two meanings. You're obviously convinced of a single meaning, though. Jakew (talk) 11:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not letting that madness stand. Jakew clearly didn't read the page I linked, which indicates how senses are separated in the dictionary I linked. Dictionaries separate senses with separate entries for the senses. Consider for example the entry for castration, which lists the male and female senses separately: 2 a: to deprive of the testes : geld b: to deprive of the ovaries : spay. Note that despite the multiple senses, the castration article properly deals with the topic in general (male and female castration) instead of picking one particular aspect and labeling it according to the general topic, in an attempt to "tell" people that female castration isn't really castration. This fraud must end, Jakew. Blackworm (talk) 16:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
While you may think that the separation is significant, the source tells us that "The system of separating the various senses of a word by numerals and letters is a lexical convenience. It reflects something of their semantic relationship, but it does not evaluate senses or set up a hierarchy of importance among them."[9] (emph added) Jakew (talk) 16:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Jake, think about what the quote says, and what you're saying. What the sentence you quoted means is that the enumeration and ordering of the different senses are a convenience. It doesn't mean the senses aren't separated. In any case, I've already shown you that multiple senses can be part of the same one topic (e.g. castration). The fact that there is only one sense for "circumcise" listed just makes my position bulletproof. You also haven't addressed the JAMA article Rapid bloodless circumcision of male and female, and its technic, and there are plenty of other sources talking about circumcision as a concept applicable to males and females. The denial of this view here creates a fallacy of definition, namely that the topic of circumcision as defined here is clearly too narrow. It's unfortunate that few have to patience to read this entire discussion and see the evidence for themselves, or to attempt to follow your convoluted logic to its illogical conclusion. Blackworm (talk) 17:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
The move discussion has been open long enough (more than five days). An admin could close it at this point. I do not perceive that a consensus to move has formed at this time. Does anyone think the discussion should go on longer? If the move proposal is relisted, does anyone have an idea for publicizing it to get more input? I am willing to close the discussion if people think that the issue has been sufficiently reviewed. EdJohnston (talk) 05:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
The whole area is a mess of POV promotion, and it's probably not going to ever be possible to remove it all, we just need to try to minimise it. I'd suggest give up on this one for the moment and instead, if you really want to spend time trying to clean up the POVs, revisit the naming of the female genital cutting article which, as someone pointed out above, seems to be a rather bizarre example of political correctness overriding naming conventions. The lead of that article currently states that it refers to "all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons", and then sources that quote to an article that refers to female genital mutilation (my emphasis) not cutting.
As I've been involved in the discussions already, I'm not prepared to be the one to close this discussion as no consensus. Andrewa (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I think formal arbitration is needed. Too many irregularities: drive-by opposes, flip-flops reminiscent of The Godfather, spammed bogus statistics, blatant falsehoods used as premises in arguments to oppose, and attempts by anon IPs expressing opposition to close the discussion prematurely and repeatedly, in disregard for fair process. Blackworm (talk) 21:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't fully understand your point. I'm prepared to the close the debate tomorrow (nobody has asked for a relist). Since you have argued that there was misbehavior, I am willing to take that into account if it is documented and explained somewhere on this page. (Say what policy you think was violated). I recommend that either you have me close the debate, or get any other uninvolved admin to do it. EdJohnston (talk) 02:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
HIV part 2
I've reverted the addition of Thomas et al. to the HIV section. As was noted in December, this study is a single observational study, and there is no obvious reason why we should cite this study of the 40 or so observational studies to date. As noted recently, approximately 80% of observational studies found a protective effect, and the article ought to reflect that. If we were to cite a representative selection of observational studies, including Thomas as one of several, then there is no problem. There's space to do that in medical analysis of circumcision. Here, space is more limited, and to cite one non-representative study constitutes undue weight. Indeed, Thomas et al. noted that "Randomized clinical trials [then] currently underway should shed more light on this pressing topic", yet we do not even cite these RCTs directly. Instead, we cite secondary sources that summarise the trials. Similarly, we cite secondary sources that summarise observational studies. Jakew (talk) 11:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
You don't seem to neutral. If 80% observational studies found protective effect, why is the AIDS/STD section 100% on its protective effect? If nothing else there should be a paragraph devoted to skepticism for circumcision having a protective effect. I am not asking to remove any links to existing works, I think people should be given a full range of information, but the AIDS/STD section is completely one sided. The other 20% of the studies is more representative of those who will actually ever read this page, as most of the 80% is set in 3rd world countries. User:intactguy 21:15 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Since the publication of the randomised controlled trials, there is relatively little scepticism about the protective effect in the literature (try searching PubMed and you'll see what I mean - the overwhelming majority of authors now agree that there is a protective effect). Most published scepticism dates from before these trials were published. For example, as you'll see in the last sentence of the second paragraph of the HIV section, there was disagreement over whether the observational studies constituted strong enough evidence. As for your claim that the studies in developed nations found no difference, please see the section entitled "HIV Infection and Male Circumcision in the United States" in the CDC's factsheet. Jakew (talk) 21:31, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
You are acting like I am trying to have that information removed. Anyone who is truly looking at this from a scientific standpoint will never say case closed, so it is best to at least show another view. I said a "a few studies in developed nations", the studies done in developed nations aren't always as successful in showing a protective effect. As for the link you gave me, there is only one mention of a heterosexual study in the US, and "However, this association was not statistically significant [28]." Funny the CDC didn't mention the Thomas et al? intactguy 21:53 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't think of any meta-analyses that have reported an association between whether studies were performed in developed nations and their results. It's an interesting hypothesis, however. Anyway, I think your most recent edit to the article is an improvement, but two problems remain. First, the source you cite doesn't directly support the claim, and second, it doesn't distinguish between observational studies and RCTs. As a possible solution, we could add something to the sentence I mentioned above ("Before there were any results from randomized controlled trials, reviews of observational data differed as to whether there was sufficient evidence for an intervention effect of circumcision against HIV"), perhaps changing it to something like "Before there were any results from randomized controlled trials, reviews of observational data differed as to whether there was sufficient evidence for an intervention effect of circumcision against HIV.[refs] In one review, 21 of the 27 included studies found a protective effect.[ref:Weiss]" (addition in italics) Jakew (talk) 23:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
If a study does not find a statistically significant difference between two groups, that's a non-result. It proves nothing. It's quite easy to run a study that gets that sort of non-result: you just include a rather small number of subjects in the study. It's far more difficult to have a study that shows that if there is an effect, then it must be smaller than 30% (or whatever other percentage or amount); that would require a very large number of subjects and that sort of result is rarely achieved. It's quite impossible to have a statistical study that shows that there is precisely zero difference between two groups. Even if a study doesn't give a statistically significant result in itself, if combined with other studies in a meta-analysis it may contribute to a statistically significant result, giving a similar result to what would have been achieved if a larger number of subjects had been included in the original study. Therefore, there's no need for us to report such non-results of individual studies. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 23:43, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
I disagree Coppertwig. The point intactguy is trying to make is the non-result. When one study says "yes this does blah blah blah..." and another says "does not find a statistically significant difference to blah blah blah.." we do not disregard it. These aren't separate control groups with expected failure rates but separate studies looking at the same thing. Garycompugeek (talk) 01:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
That was the point of my previous post Jake, could you explain which part of my statement about Coppertwig's statement you do not understand? Garycompugeek (talk) 16:18, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem was that you didn't seem to address Coppertwig's reasoning at all, save to say that you disagreed. That's why I asked you to explain. As I understand, Coppertwig is making two points, firstly that a non-significant result is inconclusive, and secondly that since meta-analyses are available, which are the sum of the parts and more, there's little value in citing individual studies. It is unclear whether you disagree with either or both of these points, and on what basis. Personally, I agree with the second point, and partly agree with the first (a non-significant result can be a type II error, but on the other hand it can also indicate that the null hypothesis is actually true. Working out which depends on the context, statistical power, and so on). Jakew (talk) 16:41, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Ahh clarity. Jake I was disagreeing to Coppertwigs last sentence "Therefore, there's no need for us to report such non-results of individual studies." While I agree meta is a nice way to formulate multiple sources it is not conducive to opposing controversy. Garycompugeek (talk) 21:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I would say not finding a statistical difference does say something. And I was only mentioning that, because Jakew ask me to read the CDC factsheet, which wasn't enlightening. As for the lines I wrote, feel free to re-write it, what I am really looking for that the subject not be one sided. I agree we can't list all research done (Although I think it would be a good idea to have another page with all research done and results) in that section. As for the trials done in Africa, most agree it has its most value in high risk areas of Africa, and are unclear what that would mean for developed nations. Also, I think the 50-60% reduction may be a bit misleading, and should be put in context. The 50-60% makes good headlines, but it is relative risk, the absolute reduction in risk is less than 2%. Being circumcised in Southern Africa makes you 60% less likely to get AIDS than an uncut man, but in general you are only 2% less likely to get AIDS.intactguy15:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
(unindenting) Coppertwig, would you be opposed to (slightly) expanding our coverage of the meta-analyses of observational studies? It seems to me that, by relying upon these secondary sources, we could accomodate the desire to show that some observational studies found no significant difference, yet we could also place these in an appropriate context and avoid reporting results (or non-results) of individual studies. I've suggested a possible sentence above - could it be adapted in any way? Jakew (talk) 20:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
It's OK with me to include your suggested addition "In one review, 21 of the 27 included studies found a protective effect.[ref:Weiss]". I looked at the abstract (Weiss 2000) and this seems to be a reasonable summary.
intactguy, you may think that not finding a statistical difference says something, and I might even agree with you in some situations, but many people think things say something – for example, a result which shows a difference although it is not statistically significant can be taken as weak evidence that there is a difference; however, generally when reporting scientific results standards such as statistical significance are normally used, and if the number of subjects was too small to be able to calculate any statistically significant result (not even that if there was a difference, it must have been smaller than a certain amount) then we would only be going on personal opinion as to what that might mean, not on scientific consensus. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore, if a study finds a difference which is in the expected direction and is rather large but not statistically significant, that is certainly not evidence that there is no difference. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Revision of the definition and revision to sexual effects section
According to the Webster's Dictionary definition and from the meaning of the Latin, I suggest "removal" be replaced with "cutting off". Removal is performed by cutting so cutting is the better word to use.
Circumcision is the cutting off of some or all of the foreskin (prepuce) from the penis or the internal labia of females.
In the sexual effects section I suggest reordered the content into a more coherent manner. At present the antecdotal reports are listed then the opposition is listed and then the evidence in favour of the antecdotal reports are listed. It would be more coherent to order this as <antecdotal reports>, <evidence of antecdotal reports> and then <studies not supporting the recent antecdotal reports>.
In my opinion it is also worth noting the Masters and Johnson study was released in 1966. The reference to this study is taken from an article released in 1999 which could be misleading. Specifically I want to add In a study published in 1966, ". Notice that the sentence following that one includes the date of release "In January 2007, The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) stated..". Also the beginning quotation marks on the Masters and Johnson quotes are missing and should be added.
Masters and Johnson noted no difference in exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination on the ventral or dorsal surfaces of the glans penis between circumcised and uncircumcised men."[1] In January 2007, The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) stated "The effect of circumcision on penile sensation or sexual satisfaction is unknown. Because the epithelium of a circumcised glans becomes cornified, and because some feel nerve over-stimulation leads to desensitization, many believe that the glans of a circumcised penis is less sensitive. [...] No valid evidence to date, however, supports the notion that being circumcised affects sexual sensation or satisfaction."[2]Jookieapc (talk) 12:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
(Note: I have modified the above to convert the angle brackets to HTML character entities, since they caused some of Jookieapc's comment to become invisible. Jakew (talk) 12:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC))
Several problems here. First, of the eight definitions cited, three state that circumcision is "cutting off" (or variations thereof) and four state that circumcision is "removal". Not all forms of circumcision require cutting (consider some of the clamps, for example), so "removal" is somewhat more generally applicable.
The second problem is that the article is about the removal of the penile foreskin, and the first sentence should define the subject of the article. There is no need to define every meaning of the word, and doing so is misleading.
The third problem is that the "sexual effects" section consists of the conclusions of three secondary sources, and needs to accurately represent those three sources. The actual ordering is: i) the assessment of the AAP, ii) the assessment of the AAFP, and iii) the assessment of Boyle et al. Please note that we are not quoting Masters and Johnson directly; we are quoting the AAP's assessment of the sexual effects of circumcision, and the fact is that they chose to cite M&J. Jakew (talk) 12:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with points 1. Even if 99.99% of male circumcisions are done by cutting the use of the clamp on occasions makes "removal" more encompassing.
What do you mean by actual ordering? The first, and third sources are secondary sources but the secondary source is not. Of all the sources only one is 42 years old! That should be listed and not just excluded because AAP chose to include an old source. Also the third source has been truncated to hide the meaning of the sources statement which went on to state "an inevitable reduction in sexual sensation experienced by circumcised males". That should be ammended. We can't just add half of the sentence to soften the meaning. Jookieapc (talk) 13:21, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Jookieapc, I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean when you say "The first, and third sources are secondary sources but the secondary source is not". Could you rephrase?
None of the sources are 42 years old. The AAP's 1999 statement included the following words, which we quote:
a survey of adult males using self-report suggests more varied sexual practice and less sexual dysfunction in circumcised adult men. There are anecdotal reports that penile sensation and sexual satisfaction are decreased for circumcised males. Masters and Johnson noted no difference in exteroceptive and light tactile discrimination on the ventral or dorsal surfaces of the glans penis between circumcised and uncircumcised men.
There is a single source for this quote: the AAP's 1999 document. That source, in turn, cites other sources, but these are not our sources. The AAP didn't comment on the date of this source (and presumably they would have done if they felt it important), and injecting this editorial comment serves only to undermine their assessment through original analysis of their statement.
Worse, Gary's recent edit introduces further problems. Firstly, it introduces the AAP's summary by stating 'In a study published in 1966, "..."', which is actively misleading because it implies that the quote is taken from the 1966 study, which is incorrect: it is actually a quote from the AAP. To correctly attribute the quote, one would have to say something like 'Citing a study published in 1966, the AAP continue, "..."', but of course this doesn't address the underlying problem. Additionally, there is no closing quote before "In a study published in 1966", making it appear as these are the AAP's words. Jakew (talk) 14:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew please don't act like you don't understand. The AAP quoted a source 42 years old and listed the date in their references section for the reader to find easily. The AAP reusing findings from the 60s doesn't somehow modernise those findings. Jookieapc (talk) 01:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Jake I was reinstating Jookieapc's edit for I saw no reason not to include it. However if you feels it introduces ambiguity I have no problem with your proposed edit "Citing a study published in 1966". Garycompugeek (talk) 14:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Gary, I'm puzzled why you should think that I was proposing that edit. As I clearly indicated, it would not address the underlying problem (ie., undermining the AAP's statement through original analysis of their statement). Please read my comment again. Jakew (talk) 14:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Gary, the special treatment given to the date of the study implies that it is significant. Nowhere else in the article do we comment on the dates of studies cited by secondary sources (we don't comment on the date of the other source cited by the AAP, for example). The strong implication is that the date or age of the study is important, in spite of the fact that the AAP did not comment on it. The effect is to reduce the emphasis on what the AAP actually said. We should be discussing the AAP's analysis, not ours. Jakew (talk) 18:08, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
We quote study dates all over the place Jake. Readers find this helpful. It matters not what "place" source 1st, 2nd, 3rd, who cares, it is coming from. I find it noteworthy because of the difference of opinion of circumcision in different times. Just because the AAP didn't implicitly state the studies date means nothing either. We are not required to quote every source verbatim. Adding a sources date is hardly WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Garycompugeek (talk) 18:56, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Gary, can you show me an example of where we quote the date of a source cited by a secondary source? Jakew (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that's a step backwards, Blackworm. Now this reads as using a primary source (M&J) as a rebuttal to the preceding sentence in the AAP's quote ("There are anecdotal reports that penile sensation and sexual satisfaction are decreased for circumcised males."). Please see WP:MEDRS#Using primary sources to "debunk" the conclusions of secondary sources. The AAP cited Masters and Johnson in their following sentence. I am puzzled as to why there should be such strong opposition to simply quoting what they say. Jakew (talk) 21:19, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I am puzzled as to why you would want to hide the date of publication. It's not debunking anything. Change the order of the sentences, or start a new paragraph, or begin the section with M&J if you want, I don't care -- the material referenced is right there, accurate, and saying essentially the same thing the AAP said. I'm sorry that we are providing the fact that Masters and Johnson conducted their research over 40 years ago, and I'm sorry if you see that as weakening the brochure impact of the pro-circumcision statement. But it's a fact, and it's a fact that is relevant. Blackworm (talk) 21:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no desire to hide the date at which M&J was published, Blackworm, and indeed where we cite it directly (eg here), I see no problem with it being dated (as indeed it is). However, in this particular context, "hiding" is not an issue because the AAP do not refer in their analysis to the date. Wikipedia policy strongly encourages the use of secondary sources in preference to primary sources, so that we can rely upon them to select and analyse what facts are important (according to the viewpoint of the author). In this article, where space is limited, that's especially important. Thus there is no reason to say "essentially the same thing the AAP said" when we can actually say what the AAP said, and we should certainly not do so in such a way that presents the primary source as though it contradicted the secondary source. As for whether it's relevant, if you have another reliable source that, for example, criticises the AAP for relying upon a study of this age, then please present it and let's discuss it. Jakew (talk) 21:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew failed to validate his assertion that "not all forms of circumcision require cutting (consider some of the clamps, for example)." When I pressed him on this, in this discussion, the best source he could come up with was an unreliable source which didn't even state what he wanted to claim. Circumcision is cutting. The word comes from the Latin "to cut." The word is etymologically related to the words incision,excision, and scissors. It's cutting, definitely -- however, "removal" sounds so much more friendly, like removing a cyst, or a tumor, or another foreign, undesirable body. That is the meaning intended here. Blackworm (talk) 19:18, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's the obvious intention with leaving "removal" in. A new born baby with some extra skin gets taken away for a simple "removal" procedure and comes back "fixed up", "normal", "clean".. Jookieapc (talk) 01:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, I would like to point out to you again that the word "circumcision" is not the focus of this article: rather, that word is a name to refer to the focus of this article. The fact that "-cision" means or originally meant cutting is interesting but not binding on us.
Re the AAP/Masters&Johnson quote: I reverted back to what I believe is the original version. Jakew correctly points out that Wikipedia articles are supposed to rely on secondary sources if possible, and that the AAP did not mention the date. I looked through the above discussion again and the only reason I see that's been given for providing the date is that Jookieapc's opinion is that it's worth noting. Wikipedia articles are supposed to reflect the opinions of sources such as the AAP, not opinions of Wikipedians. It seems to me that explicitly stating the date in a sentence of the article would be undue weight here. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 15:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
We provide the date for practically every other source. Jakew adds the date "(1999)" to the AMA statement in the lead, and moves it prior to the WHO statement, so that the WHO is seen as debunking it. No one bats an eyelash. Now, because we want the article to say "notes no difference" instead of what the original source says, which is "no clinically significant difference could be established," and because we want the ancient date of the study obscured, we invent bogus arguments that the directly summarized M&J statements are "debunking" the previous statement. It's bogus; the solution was given: move the sentence. You yourself argued that not finding a difference doesn't mean there is no difference. The sentence I wrote about M&J stands completely on its own, and could easily be moved to begin the section. It has nothing to do with the AAP, and the AAP's summary of the paper is clearly of inferior quality to quoting the paper directly. I suggest you think hard about the precedent you establish here -- it means any time any primary study is misused or misinterpreted by a group such as AAP or WHO, you insist on using the misinterpretation and burying the true study. Shall I start dismissing Jakew's arguments whenever he claims something is "worth noting?" You're sounding like him lately. It's saddening. Blackworm (talk) 21:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
More content on the procedure
The title of this article primarily relates to the procedure of [male] circumcision, not just the "circumcised" final product so I propose clearer information on the procedure itself. I propose we add photos or diagrams to the procedure section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jookieapc (talk • contribs) 01:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
One-sided illustration
A photo that has been added to the "Ethical, psychological and legal considerations" section. The photo depicts promotional materials used by anti-circumcision activists, and the purpose of such these materials, obviously, is to promote the anti-circumcision position. Consequently, the effect (whether or not it was intended) of including a photograph of these materials is also to promote the anti-circumcision position.
Nigelj reverted the deletion, stating that "This is the section that discusses 'opponents' - it is perfectly right to illustrate with a small pic of a few opponents." This is erroneous, since the section is not about opponents, but "Ethical, psychological and legal considerations". The viewpoints of some opponents are discussed in this section, alongside those of others, but the section is not about opponents. Furthermore, opponents are not the focal point of the photograph, which - as noted - clearly illustrates the promotional materials used by the opponents. As such, the effective weight given to the arguments expressed in the slogans (eg., "Whose Body, Whose Rights? Let HIM choose") is drastically increased through the photograph, with the result that the section is biased away from neutral coverage. Jakew (talk) 18:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Oh, don't be so silly: how can each and every photograph show a balanced viewpoint in and of itself? Just find some others that show some other POVs to achieve the necessary balance. This article desperately needs illustrations: it is one of the dullest-looking in WP, I think.
BTW, you have edited my edit comment above, I also mentioned that the section above already has an illuminated image of the Jewish ceremonial circumcision of Jesus, painted by Christians in the 1400s. That implies a distinctly other POV already, to my mind. --Nigelj (talk) 18:58, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
WP is not censored. There are plenty of other photos illustrating activism and political demonstrators across WP (see abortion, gay rights&opposition, Tibet, etc etc.) White-washing out an example of anti- neonatal circ protest is POV in itself. If you can find a picture that demonstrates the pro- viewpoint that would be relevent to the section, add away. --User0529 (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, under what circumstances, in your opinion, could this photo be displayed in some Wikipedia article without violating NPOV? ☺Coppertwig (talk) 19:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
According to the description, it illustrates a "[m]inor protest in front of Washington Convention Center in connection with the American Association of Pediatricians annual meeting". As such, it is probably most suitable for inclusion in the discussion of anti-circumcision protests and demonstrations in Genital integrity#United States. Jakew (talk) 20:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
I feel that way about the "family circumcision set" that accompanies the lead section, unduly emphasizing the tradition, long history, and "family values" aspect of cutting the foreskin off infant boys' penises with no anaesthetic. Blackworm (talk) 23:15, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Jake your position for removing the picture because it is a violation of NPOV is illogical. By your logic only non controversial pictures may be added to articles and that is clearly not the case. We use pictures to illustrate all manner of points in articles. Garycompugeek (talk) 01:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There is a difference between illustrating something and promoting a viewpoint, Gary. In an article about anti-circumcision activism (ie., genital integrity), it serves to illustrate. Jakew (talk) 10:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Garycompugeek, I would appreciate it if you would clarify your position by answering this question: in your opinion, is it possible for any image on any Wikipedia article to violate WP:UNDUE, and if so, would you please give a hypothetical example? By the way, note that Jake is not contending that only non-controversial images can be added to articles, and I don't think that conclusion is a necessary result of Jake's position. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii is much more eloquent than I but I echo his sentiments. I believe a picture is UNDUE when it does not pertain to its subject. Garycompugeek (talk) 19:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, at the beginning of this discussion you described some of the items depicted in the image you've removed as "promotional materials". Those placards to which you refer make no mention of any organisation name, there are no contact details, and there is no invitation to join, support etc. The words and phrases on those placards simply reproduce, very briefly, some of the arguments made by opponents of circumcison, arguments which are referenced in much greater detail in this very article. I think the phrase "promotional materials" is misleading: this isn't advertising, it's presentation of arguments.
Images must be relevant to the article they appear in and be significantly relative to the article's topic
I suggest that a photo of someone protesting against routine infant circumcision (i.e. an opponent of circumcision) IS relevant to this article and significantly relevant to the topic: male circumcision, and if you think that's not the case, I would like to know why.File:Activist protesting infant circumcision.jpgThe image being discussed
Your arguments seem to imply that the text on the placards in the photos is the main reason why you think the photo does not belong here. Let me ask you a question: if a photo of such a protest is not permitted because phrases on the placards criticise circumcision, how would it be possible to include a photo of an anti-circumcision protest at all? I mean, if we weren't able to see what the placards say, the image of the protest would be of little use, and could depict any old protest. Your stance seems to imply that in this article you will not accept any photo of an anti-circumcision protest where it is possible to discern that the protesters are protesting against circumcision. Am I right about that, and if so, isn't that censorship?
Oh, and one last point. The image was not "moved" to another article, as you state in the summary of the edit with which you removed it (making it more difficult to locate for anyone who might be following this discussion by the way), it was simply included there as well it was removed from this one at a time when it had already been included in the other article; it's possible to include a single image in multiple articles on Wikipedia, as you well know. Anyway, I've now included the image here for reference purposes. Beejaypii (talk) 18:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't believe you guys are still belly-aching about this here! So, we have politely to ask, "Jakew, under what circumstances, in your opinion, could this photo be displayed in some Wikipedia article without violating NPOV?", and, when he tells us which one, we say, "Good idea, done it!", "Thanks, Jake", put it there and delete it here. Then we start to discuss whether maybe an image might be able to appear in two articles at once? What is this, some kind of dominatrix group? Or is it a group of peers working together? --Nigelj (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, I described the items depicted in the image as "promotional materials" because, as I said, "the purpose of such these materials, obviously, is to promote the anti-circumcision position". I did not suggest that they were advertising, and as such I'm somewhat puzzled by your argument. Furthermore, as I noted, they have no direct relevance to the section in which they were added, and are only weakly relevant to the article in general. By "weakly relevant", I mean that the image depicts something (promotional materials used in a genital integrity protest) that is not discussed in this article, and probably could not be discussed in the article without falling foul of WP:UNDUE and WP:SOAP.
You ask, "how would it be possible to include a photo of an anti-circumcision protest at all?", but this seems to skip a somewhat more pressing question: "would it be appropriate to include a photo of such a protest"? Hypothetically, I could take a photo of myself in an "anti-lettuce protest", but would it be appropriate to include it in the article on lettuce? The answer would depend on whether the photo would serve to illustrate discussion of anti-lettuce protests. Hypothetically, if anti-lettuce activism were a highly notable, significant issue, then it might be appropriate to include discussion and illustration in the main article. On the other hand, if it were less notable, it might be discussed in its own article, which would be a more appropriate location for the photograph (and, obviously, discussion). (As an aside, it has proved very difficult to find third-party sources to demonstrate that genital integrity is notable.) It's important to remember that images are not exempt from issues of undue weight, and if it would be inappropriate to discuss anti-lettuce activism in the text, it would be equally inappropriate to insert a photograph instead.
To return to the subject, then, the photo does not illustrate the section, and as such the only function it serves is to promote an anti-circumcision position, violating WP:NPOV. Jakew (talk) 19:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Note: Edited Beejaypii's comment to move image to right in order to make comment indentation visible. Jakew (talk) 19:19, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, the photo shows a protest against routine infant circumcision. It appears in a subsection which includes the following:
Opponents of circumcision question the ethical validity of removing healthy, functioning genital tissue from a minor, arguing that infant circumcision infringes upon individual autonomy and represents a human rights violation.
The image depicts an "opponent[s] of circumcision", the placards reference the "ethical validity of removing healthy, functioning tissue from a minor" through the words and phrases "Foreskin is not a birth defect", "Whose body?", "Whose rights?", and through the use of the images of infants. Furthermore, the phrase "Whose rights?" references "human rights violation", and the phrase "Whose body?" references "individual autonomy". The image is very relevant to the part of the section in which it appears, bearing in mind that there is no requirement to find images which are pictorial representations of all aspects of the article or section to which they relate. The picture is illustrative and appropriate in the context in which it appears because it adds more information to this supposedly encyclopaedic article by showing the reader that some people are prepared to demonstrate against circumcision. You may not like it, but this is an aspect of circumcision opposition. It's unfortunate that we don't have a similar picture of a pro-circumcision rally (if such a thing existed) or similar, but that's no excuse for censorship. I suggest that neutrality isn't about finding a matching pro for every con (or vice-versa), and then exluding any unmatched pros and cons left over; it's about not suppressing any of the pros and cons which we take a dislike to. Instead of blocking attempts to add additional relevant information to the article, perhaps you could search for an image of activities related to one of those WHO inspired anti-HIV infection circumcision programmes you've referred to in previous discussions, and include that in the article, for example. Beejaypii (talk) 20:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, the sentence does not describe or otherwise refer to protests, so one cannot justify the inclusion of the photograph on grounds that it illustrates such protests. As I commented previously, the only function of the photograph is to promote the anti-circumcision position (as described by the sentence which you quote). The section itself contains a representative selection of viewpoints, with the result that it is fairly well balanced overall. As you note, the signs in the photograph echo certain phrases within this sentence. As a result they serve to emphasise and reinforce that sentence, which, as I noted above, increases the effective weight given to these arguments.
Consider the following hypothetical paragraph, with an equally hypothetical illustration (the "illustration" is just a little HTML & CSS, but please assume, for the sake of argument, that it's an image):
Circumcision is really great
Some people think that circumcision is awful. Others think that circumcision is really great. Still others are neutral on the subject.
Which of the three sentences seems to be given the most weight? The answer is obvious: the second.
There are plenty of anti-circumcision websites that include prominent photographs of their protests (here is one example). That's entirely understandable because, to them, their "message" and their protests are highly important. But they don't have a neutral point of view policy. We do. Jakew (talk) 20:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
It's too bad you can't abide by that policy when it calls for the presentation of material of views that you consider interfere with this article's message, a message you summarize so well with your inline image above. Perhaps we should put your image in the article; at least it would be consistent with the rest of the article, under your longstanding, iron-fisted, and biased administrator-backed watch. Blackworm (talk) 21:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, I disagree that the only function of the image is to promote the anti-circumcision point of view. The function is to illustrate the way the anti-circumcision point of view is promoted by activists. The information could be used by readers in a variety of ways. It could, hypothetically, be useful to a pro-circumcision reader who might, hypothetically, use the information by deciding to go out and make big pro-circumcision posters in reaction to the fact that there exist anti-circumcision posters. Our job is to provide the information; it's up to the reader to decide how to use it. However, I'm undecided as to whether that image is appropriate in this article. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the image could illustrate the way the anti-circumcision point of view is promoted, and in genital integrity, where we discuss the activities of activists, it does. But consider this article. How, in a meaningful sense, can we illustrate something that isn't discussed? I don't think we can. Due to the context, the only part of the text that is actually illustrated is the viewpoint itself. And as a result, it adds a great deal of weight to that viewpoint, much like my hypothetical "circumcision is really great" example above. Jakew (talk) 11:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
But it is discussed, here: "Opponents of circumcision question the ethical validity of removing healthy, functioning genital tissue from a minor, arguing that infant circumcision infringes upon individual autonomy and represents a human rights violation." That photo is quite a good illustration of that sentence, in my opinion. You mentioned that there are anti-circumcision websites with a lot of material like that. If there's a lot of that kind of promotion of the anti-circumcision point of view, and there isn't much of that kind of promotion of the pro-circumcision point of view, then perhaps due weight would suggest including such a photo, without necessarily going to great lengths to try to balance it by finding a photo of a pro-circumcision protester, if there is such a thing; we also don't need to search for a photo from some minor anti-circumcision religion somewhere to balance the religious photos. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 12:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, could you explain why you think that the photo is a good illustration of that sentence? I agree that it illustrates the viewpoint described, but since illustrating this viewpoint repeats it with added emphasis, that's problematic from an undue weight perspective. Surely we therefore need to ask in what other way it illustrates, and whether the value of the illustration is sufficient in light of the undue weight problems. I can't see in what other way it illustrates. I should also point out that NPOV is concerned with the prominence of an argument in reliable sources, and consequently it is an error to assess due weight by considering vocal promotion of certain viewpoints in unreliable sources. Jakew (talk) 13:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
You ask, "how would it be possible to include a photo of an anti-circumcision protest at all?", but this seems to skip a somewhat more pressing question: "would it be appropriate to include a photo of such a protest"? Hypothetically, I could take a photo of myself in an "anti-lettuce protest", but would it be appropriate to include it in the article on lettuce?
I think when we consider illustrations we should consider them as a whole. The pictures of circumcised and uncircumcised penises are at least even-handed. However, the other illustrations do a good job of promoting circumcision. There is a map showing the prevalence of circumcision in different parts of the world, using green, yellow and red-brown. As green generally has favourable connotations, no-one could say that this map was biased against circumcision. The other illustrations are also circumcision friendly. For example, there is an illustration of Jesus being circumcised and also of a Jewish circumcision. Both of these serve to promote the practice. Another two illustrations show a circumcision set and an ancient Egyptian carving. Both of these could be described as soft promotion of circumcision. The illustrations, as they stand are quite one-sided. A picture of protesters against circumcision might help to redress the balance. However, the protester looks so scruffy and alone that I doubt he would carry much weight with anyone. So what is the fuss about? Michael Glass (talk) 11:53, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I would agree with you about the colours used in the map, Michael. It would be better to have colours without the positive and negative connotations associated with green and red. I will investigate to see whether I can easily change the colours (as an aside, I also think the map should be moved to the 'prevalence' section). I think it is a stretch, however, to view the other images as "circumcision friendly", as you put it, and I'm not sure how one could view a photograph of a Jewish circumcision as promoting the practice. Certainly it is not remotely comparable to the image we're discussing, the subject of which is openly anti-circumcision (indeed, an anti-circumcision activist protest would be singularly ineffective if one was left wondering whether they opposed circumcision). Regardless, as with non-neutral text, the proper approach is to make it more neutral, not to add more non-neutral content to balance it. Jakew (talk) 13:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Michael Glass pointed to at least two distinctly positive images related to circumcision. By your methods of determining POV in images, those images are clearly POV. Since that seems absurd, I conclude, again, that your method seems absurd. You also dodge some points and address others incompletely, which is why so many editors get exasperated with you and give up.
(By the way Jakew, the image of a Jewish circumcision is currently using a different meaning of "circumcision," as explained in the hatnote. Given your staunch stance of using only the meaning as defined in this article here, it seems to me it is like putting an image related to female circumcision here. If they showed the actual procedure rather than the scene of the ritual, the image would be more relevant. Of course, that is forbidden, for you would see its graphic nature as somehow biased against circumcision.) Blackworm (talk) 14:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew has introduced a straw man argument into this debate. The relationship between his image, (the one consisting of the phrase "Circumcision is really great" in large red characters on a white background in a black frame) and the text he's produced to accompany it is not analogous to the relationship between the photo under discussion and the text which that photo illustrates.
The photo under discussion depicts an opponent of circumcision opposing routine male infant circumcision, and the placards that person has with him briefly summarise some of the reasons why he's opposing circumcision, reasons which are described in more detail in the text. Here's the passage in the text which the photo illustrates (again):
Opponents of circumcision question the ethical validity of removing healthy, functioning genital tissue from a minor, arguing that infant circumcision infringes upon individual autonomy and represents a human rights violation.[41][42]
As we can see, the photo shows us someone doing something which the extract from the text tells us some people do: oppose circumcision, for particular reasons.
The text of Jakew's image, however, consists of a simple one-sided assertion, completely unqualified and unattributed to any person or group of people. The portion of his text to which his image relates actually tells us that some people think circumcision is really great, which is not the same as stating that "Circumcision is really great". Beejaypii (talk) 08:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, I think that you've misunderstood the purpose of the "image" that I introduced. The relationship between the hypothetical image ("Circumcision is really great") and the hypothetical text ("Others think that circumcision is really great") is such that what the viewpoint attributed in the text to "others" is illustrated. Similarly, the placards in the photograph (which are the focal point and foreground of the photograph) illustrate the viewpoint described in the sentence that you quote.
The analogy does not depend upon the content of the viewpoint that is illustrated, and would work equally well if it were more abstract ("Some people think X. Others think Y. Still others are Z.", with an image reading "X". With such an abstract example, however, the NPOV implications would be less obvious). Nor does it depends on the exact nature of the image, but if it helps you to understand, please imagine taking the activist photo above and replacing the placards with the text of my "image" (unfortunately there are limits to what can be done in HTML & CSS...). The purpose is to show that illustrating a viewpoint in an image gives greater emphasis to that viewpoint, because images (and/or bright colours, high contrast, and large fonts) draw the eye. Try scrolling through this section, and see what your eye is naturally drawn towards - I can predict with some confidence that it will be the two images. Jakew (talk) 10:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, similar to: "Some people circumcise. Others think it's a violent, mutilating assault. Here, let's begin the circumcision article with a photo of a family circumcision set from the 1800's -- notice the detailed workmanship, clean, professional and modern-looking instruments and apparent long medical history and family tradition of carefully performed circumcision, which is more important for you to be conscious of than a photo actually illustrating what a circumcision is. Next, let's look at a beautiful stain glass image of Jesus' circumcision. Wow, makes you want to kneel. Next, let's look at a photo of a solemn Jewish circumcision scene. Can't see exactly what they're doing to the baby, but it must be loving. Next, an ancient Egyptian carving. Wow, circumcision is just a natural thing for humans to do through the ages! Finally, let's show you a photo of what a circumcised penis looks like about 25 years after the procedure is done. Isn't it pretty? Next, we have... Ugh, is that uncircumcised guy naked and erect outside? What a perv."
This article has that slant from start to finish, thanks to you, but sadly you are blind to it and only see anything critical of circumcision as defacing the brochure you designed so carefully. Blackworm (talk) 14:38, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, the placards and the protestor are in the foreground of the photo, and they both form the "focal point" of the image. This is not a photograph of placards, it's a photograph of a protestor who's protesting with placards. You seem to be trying to divorce the placards from the protestor (another straw man in the making perhaps?). Maybe this explains your inaccurate analogy. Your analogy should be: some people think X; others think Y; still others are Z; here's an illustrative photo of a person who thinks X in the process of demonstrating about it.
The reader can see, and is informed by the caption, that what is depicted in the photo is a demonstration. The reader (if we are permitted to assume a minimum of intelligence here) will know that people who demonstrate with placards only express their side of the debate via those placards. The reader will know, therefore, not to attribute extra weight to the messages on the placards.
And with respect to your suggestion that images are more eye-catching and will attract the readers attention: yes, maybe, but that's not the end of the story. If an image captures a reader's attention, the reader will then read the caption, and if they find the image and caption at all interesting, they will then consult the text for further information. And readers who don't find the image interesting enough to do that are not really relevant to this debate, are they? To summarise, your opposition to the photo seems to be based on your belief that a reader will zoom in on the placards in the image, ignore the protestor taking part in a protest, not read the caption of the image, and not consult the text of the article.
You ask me to imagine replacing the text on the placards with your "Circumcision is really great" example. So, you're equating the image itself with an image which is identical in all respects, except that the text on the placards reads "Circumcision is really great". I can only assume you are trying to inject a little humour into this debate, and I thank you for that. Beejaypii (talk) 21:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Beejaypii, I agree that the protestor is included in the photo, but the focus of the photo is the placards themselves. This was acknowledged in the original caption when the image was first added ("Anti-circumcision activist signs"). The man is wearing such dark clothing, blending with the trees in the background and contrasting sharply with the bright colours of the signs, that it is not immediately obvious at first that he is present. Nor is it obvious that the man is a protester rather than a bystander (though, if one examines the image carefully, he seems to be holding one of the placards).
Your "leave it to the reader" theory has some obvious problems. One of these is that if one applies the same theory to an intelligent observer of a protest, we would have to conclude that protests in general are not persuasive, and are, in fact, utterly pointless. It seems more realistic to assume that such protests (and, indeed, marketing methods in general) are at least to some extent successful, otherwise people would stop doing them. A second problem is that, by applying your theory, we might argue that we should freely include advertising images when they are tangentially related to the subject, arguing that the intelligent reader will not be swayed by them. Yet WP has a policy against using the encyclopaedia to promote commercial or non-commercial causes, and most WPians frown on "giving free airtime" to such causes unless there is a very good reason for doing so. A third problem is the fact that we have a policy of not giving undue weight to viewpoints: appropriate weighting is our responsibility, not that of the reader, and images are not an exception to this.
I'm glad that you acknowledge that the image is eye-catching, and it may well be that the reader will consult the text. However, people read or articles in different ways. Some carefully read from start to finish, whereas others briefly scroll through. Regardless, our role is to describe viewpoints from a neutral point of view, without giving undue weight to any particular viewpoint. There is an old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words", and while I don't propose that we should take it literally, it seems foolish to pretend that it doesn't count towards the overall weight given to the anti-circumcision position.
Finally, I'm not sure what you find so funny. The "circumcision is really great" example was deliberately chosen to be blatantly POV, since I wanted to show how such an "image" could be problematic from an NPOV perspective. I presume that you'd agree that it would be inappropriate to include such an image in the article. But what you seem to be arguing is that if I placed the text on a placard, and then photographed this placard with someone (who we'll call a "protestor") standing behind it, then it becomes perfectly acceptable. Jakew (talk) 22:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, apparently you see the image with the placards as being essentially equivalent to a text box containing the contents of the placards. I see the image differently. If I were walking along the street and saw some protestors like that, I would feel that I had learned something: but not that I had learned the information presented on the placards. I probably would see that information as something I'd already been exposed to as information and probably would not change my mind about it. Rather, I would have learned something about the existence of protestors like that: the fact that there are people who care enough about this stuff to take the time to hold that sort of protest. I would read the placards, not in order to find out what the facts are, but in order to find out what those people are saying. I get a similar feel from seeing the image: it's like having the experience of seeing such a protest in RL. Yes, some people might actually be persuaded on seeing the placards or on seeing the image of the placards, but Wikipedia is not censored. I think Beejaypii has a good point that many of the images in this article are religious and relatively pro-circumcision.
The first book in a Google Books search for "circumcision" has several chapters on religious aspects etc. and a chapter called "Backlash". The cover and the earlier chapters of the book have religious pictures reminiscent of the images in this article. The "Backlash" chapter has at least 3 images of protests (p. 164, 166, 180. Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery By David Gollaher Published 2000 Basic Books. Circumcision/ History 272 pages ISBN:0465026532 [10]) ☺Coppertwig (talk) 22:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Jakew, you say "I agree that the protestor is included in the photo, but the focus of the photo is the placards themselves. This was acknowledged in the original caption when the image was first added..." From what I've seen on Wikipedia, inaccurate captions often go through a process of revision and editing, much like the rest of the text in an article, before a satisfactory version is arrived at. This seems to have happened with the caption in question, so I don't think the first version of that caption carries much weight as a definitive description of the image.
Furthermore, you present your opinion about the focus of the image as if it were a fact, with this phrase "...but the focus of the photo is the placards themselves" Ok, we all present unqualified opinions sometimes, but you then use this phrase: "This was acknowledged in the original caption when the image was first added" A subtle way of presenting an opinion as if it's a self-evident fact, and is recognised by others as such.
As for your comments about the difficulty in deciphering the image: it is immediately obvious that the man in the picture is present, unless there is something wrong with your vision or the way your brain processes images. The placard on the right has no visible means of support without the man in the image. In fact, why am I even arguing the point; the man is obviously there, dark clothing or not.
The following part of your contribution is interesting:
Your "leave it to the reader" theory has some obvious problems. One of these is that if one applies the same theory to an intelligent observer of a protest, we would have to conclude that protests in general are not persuasive, and are, in fact, utterly pointless.
Well, let's overlook the scare quotes used with "leave it to the reader". Actually, I argued that the reader has all the information they require to be able to interpret the image neutrally; they may not do that, but then that's true of almost any complex information you may present to a wide audience. I think my "theory" (yes, those are scare quotes too) would be more accurately described with a phrase such as "The information is presented in a neutral way, the reader will draw their own conclusions about what the information means to them".
You suggest that an application of the "theory" to the subject of protests themselves would lead us to conclude that they are "utterly pointless". Here, you've made an analogy between two very different concepts. On the one hand we have an illustrative snapshot of a protest, viewed on a computer screen, and located in a long article which contains plenty of information covering both sides of many different aspects of the debate in question. On the other we have the concept of an actual protest, devoid of the neutral context provided by the long and detailed article in which the image appears, and occurring over a period of time, with all the movement and noise normally associated with a process etc. Again, not the most accurate of analogies. Nevertheless, let's examine your analogy further. What you've actually done is transfer the focus of the debate from the specific (the particular photo under discussion) to the general (all protests). I'm sure that some specific protests are, indeed, "not persuasive" and "utterly pointless", and I'm also sure that the opposite is true of other protests, but to ascertain the effectiveness of a particular protest, we would have to consider that particular protest. We are, actually, considering a particular image, and my comments relate to that particular image.
Again, when you talk about advertising images, you are talking in general terms and not about the specific. The reasoning I've just used above to challenge your protest/photo of a protest analogy applies here to.
You mention undue weight. The image does not give undue weight to a viewpoint, it simply illustrates someone expressing a viewpoint already described in the text. The reader is free to draw their own conclusions about the image. For example, a reader might decide that the image shows that those who oppose circumcision can be fanatical enough to make placards and protest about it, and the reader may view that negatively, does that add weight to the viewpoint? The image simply adds extra factual information to this encyclopaedic article. The reader will draw their own conclusions from it, as they will do with the rest of the article, and you should not try to control that. You should, in fact, present the reader with as much information as possible about the topic so that the conclusions they reach are as fully-informed as possible.
I did not really "...acknowledge that the image is eye-catching..." I actually said "with respect to your suggestion that images are more eye-catching and will attract the readers attention: yes, maybe, but that's not the end of the story." That's a qualifed acknowledgement that images may be more eye-catching than text, not an unqualified acknowledgement of the absolute assertion that "images are eye-catching".
Jakew, the placards in the photograph do not display the sentence "Circumcision is really awful", and are not analogous to your "Circumcision is really great" example. The placards reproduce arguments made in the accompanying text, using a few short phrases and solitary words, and are visually attributed to a protestor. This is a key point. The image is not a simple reiteration of one side of the debate, blown up large and colourful in order to grab the reader's attention, with no context to allow neutral interpretation. If such an image had been included in this article, I would not be opposing its removal. But it hasn't and I am. I say again, you cannot divorce the placards from their context. Beejaypii (talk) 23:04, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, let me return to my "lettuce" analogy for a moment. Please consider the following scenarios.
Scenario 1. Suppose that you were reading lettuce, and found an image of a "protestor" with some placards asserting, say, that lettuces were poisonous due to (say) mercury levels. Suppose that there was a brief reference in the text to "some opponents have expressed concerns about mercury accumulation". In this case, the context is an article about the vegetable, and the only real link between the image and the text is the viewpoint expressed on the placards.
Scenario 2. Now suppose that you were reading opponents of lettuce, and you find the same image. In this case, the context is an article about the opponents of the vegetable, and there are many more links between the image and the text (which, for the sake of argument, describes the opponents, the protests, and perhaps the viewpoints as well). Moreover, one would not expect the article to consist of balanced, NPOV coverage of the vegetable, but will instead expect the article to focus on the opponents themselves.
I put it to you that in the first scenario, the image might strike you as inappropriate, unbalanced, or even soapboxy. (This would be particularly likely if lettuce opposition is a minority position.) Yet in the second scenario, due to the different context, it would seem much more appropriate.
As stated above, I certainly agree that Wikipedia is not censored, but this is not a question of censorship. Indeed, I am rather puzzled by the repeated references to censorship - I would have thought that the fact that there is no disagreement with including the image in another article is evidence that there is no intent to "censor" this image from Wikipedia. But "not censored" does not imply that all material belongs in every article, however, nor does it imply that WP is indiscriminate. We do not include material because we're not censored, we include material because it helps us to be an NPOV encyclopaedia.
Since you agree that "some people might actually be persuaded on seeing [...] the image of the placards", surely you agree that the image gives added weight to that viewpoint? If so, don't you agree that this is problematic from an undue weight perspective?
You mention the images in Gollaher's book. The obvious difference between WP and most other sources is that WP's policies and guidelines apply only to WP. Other authors can (and do) express and emphasise viewpoints through text or images, and sometimes intentionally choose images to advance their position. When they express strong views in their text, we don't copy their assertion but instead we convert it to a neutral comment about their viewpoint ("so-and-so expresses the view that..."). With images, it's less simple. Another difference is that a book is structured somewhat differently from a WP article, since an article must be shorter, and so instead of a long, essentially linear treatment we instead have a hierarchy. Having said this, I suggest that a chapter dedicated to a "backlash" against circumcision is not unlike an article dedicated to genital integrity. Jakew (talk) 23:23, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
circumcision controversy OR controversial : 650,000 hits [12] (pages have word "circumcision" as well as either of the other two words)
circumcision backlash : 54,800 hits [13] (pages have word "circumcision" and word "backlash")
I'm glad you display your minority POV here, Jakew, maybe this could allow us to get you to restrict your stranglehold and minimization of any mention of controversy in this article -- it's clear you don't deem it important, labelling it (in your minority view) a "backlash" and relegating it to some article somewhere but certainly not circumcision. Blackworm (talk) 01:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
For comparison, "abortion" has 52,000,000 hits,[14] and "abortion controversy OR controversial" has 380,000,[15] or 0.7% of articles mentioning abortion. By that measure, circumcision seems over ten times as controversial as abortion -- yet the abortion article has a paragraph discussing "intense social debate" in the lead, as well as an entire multi-page section on the "abortion debate." The circumcision controversy does not receive nearly enough weight in this article, the article having been turned into a brochure intended to show that it is perfectly normal, usual, good, and non-controversial. The editors including admins enforcing this POV fraud call anyone who objects to it "anti-circumcision zealots" and run them out of the article. Jakew is their head lawyer, and they just occasionally need to drop in and state their one-line support for everything he says, and as we've observed recently the fraud cannot be broken by any normal Wikipedia process. Someday, though, hopefully someone with some power to change things will get alarmed about activists like Jakew and his unwavering supporters insisting that Wikipedia articles reflect their POV, even in subjects where most people are either completely ignorant of the subject or agree with the majority POV. Blackworm (talk) 18:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
"Having said this, I suggest that a chapter dedicated to a "backlash" against circumcision is not unlike an article dedicated to genital integrity." Good point, Jakew. I'm still undecided about the image. Without the image, the weight of information about circumcision opponents is rather small (one sentence?) which doesn't reflect the weight in that particular book for example; including the image could help fix that balance. Blackworm, Jakew mentioned the word "backlash" because it was the title I had mentioned of the chapter of a book. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you brought a pro-circumcision source that characterizes circumcision opposition as a "backlash." Unfortunately you failed to see the absurdity of debating whether a "backlash" should be covered in this article, instead of whether the controversy over circumcision should be covered. How do you feel about roughly 9% of all articles with "circumcision" on Google also have something about a controversy, yet this article has two sentences of coverage of it, which Jakew and yourself deem is enough. Instead of addressing this, you focus on one source's more minority view of a "backlash," a term normally used by supporters of the status quo. Then you allow Jakew to keep that information in a different article. Not impressed. Blackworm (talk) 02:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, the article is primarily about circumcision, not "advocates" or "opponents" (ie., groups of people with certain views about circumcision), and as such, the weight given to each is relatively small when viewed as a subject in their own right. However, I would point out that, although we do not specifically call them "opponents", we do describe the viewpoints of several well-known opponents of circumcision when discussing specific aspects of the topic. To name three examples, we cite Denniston, Milos, and Goldman. Hypothetically, we could move these sentences (and others) into a section about "opponents", and if we were to do so I think we'd see that our coverage is not insignificant. However, I don't think that we should do so, since neutral coverage of the issues is best achieved by discussing different viewpoints about each aspect together.
I should also point out that the apparent weight in Gollaher's book is not necessarily the best standard. Firstly, as with all authors, the weight he chose to give may merely reflect his own point of view, so copying the weight in a single work may be unwise. Secondly, the apparent weight may be greater than the actual weight: while he chose to organise that chapter of his book by viewpoint rather than, say, chronology or sub-topic, it may be the case that he gives the same or more weight to "advocates", but spread across his other chapters. Thirdly, the context of his book is the history of circumcision, which is a narrower scope than circumcision in general. Jakew (talk) 11:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
(<<outdent) Blackworm, this gets into the question of how do we determine what is due weight? Is due weight based solely on the relative weight within reliable sources, and is the definition of reliable sources for the purpose of determining due weight the same as the definition used for verifiability? What reliable sources are we using here to determine due weight? Is due weight only about viewpoints or is it also about facts? (For example, it's a fact that such protests occur, therefore to report such a fact is in agreement with all viewpoints; but does due weight determine whether to report the fact or not?) I don't have answers to these questions. Jake, if you look at the material "out there" about circumcision, there's a lot of material about opposition, so it may be "due weight" to cover it. I agree that that's just one book; however, I'm impressed that in a book which starts with religious coverage, has a religious picture on the cover and gives more chapters to religion than to the "backlash", nevertheless there are pictures of protests: if that book has them, why shouldn't we? He may well give more weight to "advocates"; but if we include the picture of the protest we will be doing similarly, I think: i.e. the weight given to advocates is not expressed in the form of pictures of protests by advocates, but by religious pictures etc. I would say that about half of this article is about society-and-circumcision or history-of-circumcision, areas where the image of the protest would be relevant. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:16, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Coppertwig, it occurs to me that there are two questions here: i) should more weight be given to discussion of opposition (and perhaps advocacy) as a subject in its own right, and ii) if so, how should that be done? To address the first question, while we could organise the article in terms of "opponents" and "advocates", I think it is more neutral to consider each aspect in turn, and discuss the range of viewpoints about that aspect (for example, consider the treatment of viewpoints in the section "Psychological and emotional consequences"). It occurs to me, however, that trying to do both carries additional NPOV hazards, since it is difficult to describe a group of people identified by a common viewpoint without describing that viewpoint (hence we may inadvertently double the weight given to that viewpoint).
To address the second question, I think if we were to increase our coverage of opponents, we would need to be very careful to ensure that we do so in a way that complies with applicable policies. An image is probably not the best way to approach this, and even if it were, we'd need to ensure that the image does not cause NPOV problems. It occurs to me that those who view the image as a "protest" may be overlooking the fact that it can also be viewed as an image of the placards themselves, and their content. Thus, while reader A might view it as illustrating the fact that protests exist, reader B might view it as illustrating one particular viewpoint and consequently adding weight to that viewpoint.
In terms of the material out there, I would say that when reliable sources are considered, and primary sources are excluded, there is actually relatively little information about opponents in reliable sources (searching Google Scholar for "anti-circumcision" OR "anticircumcision" OR "circumcision opponents", for example, returns 387 results, many of which contain only passing mention, compared with 124,000 results for "circumcision"). Gollaher's book is one exception, but of course if he is sympathetic to anti-circumcision activists, he may have chosen to give them additional weight. I'm not saying that this is the case, but it is one reason why we cannot rely upon a single source to assess appropriate weight. You ask "if that book has them, why shouldn't we?", and I would answer that an NPOV encyclopaedia cannot rely upon a single author as a source, nor can it rely upon a single author to assess questions of due weight. Unless we can be absolutely sure that the selection of images in the book would conform to our own policies, we can't use it as a guide. And since Gollaher is under no obligation to comply with WP policy, that's a questionable assumption.
I'm afraid that I don't see how religious pictures advocate the procedure. I don't have strong views about whether they should or shouldn't be included. Jakew (talk) 14:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Ok, so now we are assuming that the image in question adds weight to one side of the debate, and discussing what to do about that. Could someone please explain where the question of whether or not the image actually adds weight to one side of the debate was actually resolved?
Oh, wait a minute, spotted it:
Since you agree that "some people might actually be persuaded on seeing [...] the image of the placards", surely you agree that the image gives added weight to that viewpoint? If so, don't you agree that this is problematic from an undue weight perspective? (Jakew to Coppertwig)
So, because you're able to interpret a contribution from one other editor as being in agreement with your viewpoint on a particular issue, Jakew, the issue can then be treated as if it's been resolved, and any contributions yet to receive a response on that issue can be treated as if they don't exist. Wonderful. Beejaypii (talk) 17:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Congratulations, you've learned how editing circumcision and related articles works. You haven't seen too many of Jakew's appeals to militant pro-circumcision admins sitting in the wings (Avraham (Avi), Nandesuka, Jayjg), but those tend to only be reserved for times where he may not get his exact way by his normal means (endless pedantic "discussion" and summary reverts, claims of "no consensus" due to his veto). Blackworm (talk) 19:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Jeez, "endless pedantic 'discussion'" indeed! 8,761 words here already about this one photo. Why do you guys all humour him so? The pic's clearly OK and is staying. --Nigelj (talk) 19:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Drop it Jake. It is unlikely consensus in this matter will change. I repeat "Pictures are an excellent way to illustrate." This image could only be construed as UNDUE if the article was already heavily slanted towards circumcision opposition, which it clearly is not. Garycompugeek (talk) 21:26, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
One way to resolve this issue might be to obtain another photo, perhaps of a more historically significant protest, showing a larger number of protestors and looking more like a photo of protestors and less like a photo of the placards. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 01:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that would certainly help to address the undue weight problem, especially if such a photo was placed in a more appropriate section (eg., history) that discussed such a protest. However, I'm not confident that historically significant protests exist: I can't think of any that have attracted significant media coverage, and would hence be easy to source. Jakew (talk) 13:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
circumcision opposition OR opponents OR "oppose circumcision" : 20,700 hits out of 124,000 for "circumcision" (16.7%). [16] That's 20,700 Google Scholar articles which have the word "circumcision," as well as one or more of "opposition," "opponents," and "oppose circumcision." Look at the first few pages of hits. Clearly Jakew's misinterpretation of the results of his malformed Google Scholar study must be dismissed, as his original research ignores many expressions of the circumcision controversy. Note that I'm not arguing that all those pages mention circumcision opposition, as some could be mentioning opposition to something else. This just shows that there are limitations on proving things with Google searches -- common sense and WP:NPOV must prevail. I think the debate over this photo misses the point that circumcision opposition, for the most part, isn't organized and mobilized into street demonstrations. It's just present in society and in academia. Let's acknowledge it better. The best images for the opposition, of course, would be an actual photo of the skin being cut off. The best images for the advocates are already in the article. Blackworm (talk) 08:30, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Blackworm, looking at the first page of results, most seem to be concerned with arguments that are attributed to opponents of circumcision, rather than about the opponents themselves. Unfortunately it is difficult - perhaps impossible - to construct a search that will find the latter while excluding the former, and as you say, Google searches are poor evidence in this case. I would tend to agree with you, however, that street demonstrations are probably not the most representative form of opposition to circumcision (and it is questionable whether they're even a notable form). Indeed, I'm inclined to wonder whether it is misleading to the reader to use such an image - might it suggest that, rather than academic writing, opposition takes the form of roadside protests? Jakew (talk) 13:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand the point in your first sentence. I was demonstrating precisely that circumcision is controversial, and arguments of opponents are underrepresented. It is no more misleading to use the protestor image than it is to ignore, suppress or ghettoize into subarticles all discussion of opposition to circumcision. Blackworm (talk) 21:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
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