Original Research and Todd Akin Options

[Ottava]

Regardless of how you feel about Todd Akin, Republicans, or abortion, I think there is something else to focus on when it comes to Wikipedia. The Todd Akin rape and pregnancy controversy page has some wonderful original research but the kind that is rarely talked about.

"Related news articles cited a 1996 article in an obstetrics and gynecology journal, which found that 5% of women who were raped became pregnant, which equaled about 32,000 pregnancies each year in the US alone.[6] A separate 2003 article in the journal Human Nature estimated that rapes are twice as likely to result in pregnancies as consensual sex.[7]"

The sites used are blogs, and are used only to try and put forth studies.

It is easy to find articles on both sides quoting all sorts of statistics, especially this WSJ piece saying: "One article, written by Jack Willke, a Cincinnati physician and antiabortion campaigner and published in an antiabortion group's newsletter in 1999, concluded that "assault rape pregnancies are extremely rare" and that pregnancy could result from as few as one in 1,000 cases of rape. Dr. Willke said Monday that he stood by his article."

This is not the only one quoting a differing statement, but one of the most prominent (WSJ being prominent).


The reason why I call this original research is that you put a bias by quoting some loosely connected pieces to make a claim that is definite where the own pieces do not have that definite statement. The Politico article even states: 'But Gottschall did warn that methodological problems mean the numbers “aren’t carved in a stone.”' That is no where in the Wikipedia piece quoting the story.

The sources used are only tangentially connected, or do not have the same tone that Wikipedia has. Thus, you can put forth original research while having the appearance of citations. This happens quite often among science articles, and is common when people write a statement then try to add a source to it later to protect the statement.

[Ottava]

This baffling conversation shows how bad crowd sourcing is when it comes to BLP matters. The wolves were quite gleefully to try and use the page to punish and don't seem to understand that the title is rather awful.

Let's discuss, then. What is the BLP issue? Can you clarify? Also note that the article is being already discussed for deletion or merge. Cwobeel (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It is a BLP violation because a straight reading of Akin rape controversy leads the reader to believe that the controvery is about an actual rape committed by a living person and not just merely stupid comments about rape. The title needs to convey that the article and controversy is about words and not acts -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:32, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That is a good point. Thank you. But "comments on rape-induced pregnancy" is completely out of the question as it does not describe the article, and no one as referred to it that way in the sources we have. We need to look for something better than that. Cwobeel (talk) 21:52, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

How does "comments on" not describe an article about his comments on a subject? If there are any Arbitrators around, I would suggest that they look into this Cwobeel, as his contributions and history suggest it isn't the best person to be left to edit BLPs. It is rather obvious that he is a paid partisan contributor or a sock puppet with an old grudge. His user page claim that he is into video editing isn't even a good front or used in any way except for his first edit. He is pretty much a single subject editor and that is in strong partisan topics.

This post has been edited by Ottava: