Valleywag's accusations against Erik Moeller, Claims WMF Deputy Director is "a defender of pedophilia" Options

[Cedric]

I've no truck with Erik's views whatsoever - and no idea how the WMF get employment matters so utterly wrong. But even those despise wikimedia should be able to see that this latest valleywag piece is contemptible scurrilous journalism - and Sue or Erik should be contacting their lawyers immediately.

I cannot figure out for the life of me why they didn't do that after the FIRST article! And it's not as if they don't already have a legal counsel on staff. Why hasn't Godwin sent Valleywag a cease and desist letter, at least? All four of the articles are still there...

It just doesn't make sense. After four articles, plus the Mashable piece, it seems that some sort of statement from the Foundation would be long overdue.

Quite a few people, including Kelly Martin, have suggested that the only effective tactic here would be to keep quiet, but Valleywag seems really insistent on keeping this going until either they get sued or the foundation reacts.

I wonder what happened to make the Valleywag folks this angry....

It could well be that the reason Sue and Erik have held back is that they fear The Oscar Wilde Effect. Perhaps there is nothing more of significance here to be known, but we can be very confident of one thing: inquiring defense counsel would definitely want to know, and would go to some lengths to discover if something else exists, just as they did in the case of poor Oscar.

My guess is that Sue and Erik will wait a little while longer to see if interest wanes. If not, one or both of them will deliver a smarmy written response allowing for no follow-up whatever--no answering of questions, no further clarifications, no anything. Then follow the permabans for "trolling" for those wikipedians that insist on asking questions anyway (Wrong thinking shall be punished! Right thinking shall be just as quickly rewarded!). In other words, the same ol' song and dance that we have seen for years now.

I'm am doubtful that this will prove to be the triggering event for The Great Wiki Ragnarok™, but I will concede it's too early know for sure. In any case, I'm sure it's doing its bit to

Hasten The Day!™

[tarantino]

Erik's website violence.de uses eXTReMe-Tracking to collect statistics (though humanist.de doesn't). I've always liked them because it's free, updated in real time and anyone can view the results.

Now here's an impressive list of referers.

[the fieryangel]

Erik's website violence.de uses eXTReMe-Tracking to collect statistics (though humanist.de doesn't). I've always liked them because it's free, updated in real time and anyone can view the results.

Now here's an impressive list of referers.

I'll say (I'm copying this here for documentation, in cause it "disappears") :

All Website Referrers Unique Visitors
25751 29.26% http://www.statusrank.com/
8200 9.31% http://www.violence.de/prescott/hustler/article.html
2244 2.55% http://www.violence.de/
2241 2.54% http://www.martijn.org/page.php
1959 2.22% http://www.violence.de/prescott/hustler-new/article.html
1838 2.08% http://www.tekline.co.uk/natlinks.htm
1326 1.50% http://www.humanist.de/cgi/nav.cgi
1213 1.37% http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article.html
1038 1.17% http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php
1020 1.15% http://www.violence.de/archive.shtml
1006 1.14% http://www.humanist.de/cgi-bin/nav.cgi
944 1.07% http://www.puellula.org/HFP/Links.html
856 0.97% http://www.feralchildren.com/en/neuro.php
827 0.93% http://nld.puellula.com/Main.html
813 0.92% http://www.ask.com/web
791 0.89% http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/8/12/171427/607
788 0.89% http://www.violence.de/tv/rockabye.html
717 0.81% http://www.martijn.org/en/addresses/
662 0.75% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence
646 0.73% http://www.kuro5hin.org/
596 0.67% http://www.addicks.fsnet.co.uk/nat/stiff/foreskin.htm
580 0.65% http://www.boyloverlinks.net/index.php
551 0.62% http://web.ask.com/redir
529 0.60% http://www.violence.de/prescott/pppj/article.html
493 0.56% http://piology.org/dtl/
476 0.54% http://aolsearch.aol.com/dirsearch.adp
446 0.50% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Prescott
405 0.46% http://www.violence.de/prescott/ttf/article.html
384 0.43% http://www.violence.de/prescott/pt/article.html
382 0.43% http://www.just-well.dk/persongallery.htm
380 0.43% http://www.verenigingmartijn.nl/english/adressen.html
366 0.41% http://www.violence.de/politics.shtml
361 0.41% http://www.tekline.co.uk/nlinks.htm
355 0.40% http://www.violence.de/bylinsky/article.html
336 0.38% http://www.violence.de/prescott/cv.html
319 0.36% http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
304 0.34% http://www.violence.de/prescott/bulletin/article-d.html
298 0.33% http://slashdot.org/article.pl
277 0.31% http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/search
264 0.30% http://www.scireview.de/efs/
261 0.29% http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.html
258 0.29% http://www.violence.de/mitchell/monkey.html
255 0.28% http://www.humanist.de/erik/
234 0.26% http://litleangel.mybb.ru/viewtopic.php
224 0.25% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Eloquence
222 0.25% http://www.violence.de/index.html
206 0.23% http://www.stopinfantcircumcision.org/home.htm
205 0.23% http://www.pastrealityintegration.nl/pri_links.htm
200 0.22% http://www.violence.de/prescott/women/article.html
198 0.22% http://nld.puellula.org/Main.html
197 0.22% http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/4/23/182233/949

Interesting mix of some rather....interesting sites...

[Doc glasgow]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

[the fieryangel]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Yes, EM says that he is the "copyright holder" of the material on the article's talk page....This sounds like a pretty clear case of COI, again...adding in the pro-pedo material and the anti-spanking stuff, this is starting to look pretty...creepy....

Erik's website violence.de uses eXTReMe-Tracking to collect statistics (though humanist.de doesn't). I've always liked them because it's free, updated in real time and anyone can view the results.

Now here's an impressive list of referers.

Just eyeballing things, I'm guessing that 5-10% of his monthly traffic comes from overt pro-pedo websites. That's quite a lot, especially since said sites are linking to his site...

[badlydrawnjeff]

Yes, and they invoke fair use to be able to justify the rights to do so. In my understanding of fair use, this cannot be legally justified, but their understanding of the term has never been formally legally challenged, so there you are.

Not a lawyer, but someone who has to deal with these issues professionally on a fairly regular basis, the four prong test:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

As WP is nonprofit, they get much wider berth right off the bat, and the fact that the use of the images are educational in nature (i.e., they're providing informational context through identifying images) helps. The use of the covers, as small as they tend to be, do not at all infringe on the ability of the copyright holder(s) to profit off the artwork (and that works in a variety of contexts), and a visual image of the cover of a music album is wholly insubstantial for a work of art that's generally regarded as an aural mechanism.

You're right, it's never (to my knowledge) been legally challenged, but it likely won't be, as the claims to the contrary would almost certainly never hold up if a record company were to say that a 300-400 pixel image somehow causes any financial harm to them, which would be the argument they'd have to make.

Back to your regularly scheduled child porn discussion.

[Moulton]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Sun 11th May 2008, 11:22pm

[the fieryangel]

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

How does this relate to the sites linking to EM's site?

[Moulton]

It's a response to Doc Glasgow's post, above.

[GlassBeadGame]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

Another? Which previously discussed sources are you endorsing? I think Mr. Glasgow was troubled that the Prescott article was distorted by Erik's "pro child sex" views.

[Moulton]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

Another? Which previously discussed sources are you endorsing? I think Mr. Glasgow was troubled that the Prescott article was distorted by Erik's "pro child sex" views.

Is that better?

[the fieryangel]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

Another? Which previously discussed sources are you endorsing? I think Mr. Glasgow was troubled that the Prescott article was distorted by Erik's "pro child sex" views.

Is that better?

No, you're completely missing the point that Doc was trying to make, which is that the Prescott article is full of EM's particular point of view. That's the topic of the thread and that's the very important point he was trying to make.

Off of Jimbo Wales' Talk page, User 4.250 explains why children need to see pornographic photos :

===Alternative reality?===

(What if????) Children who know more are better able to deal with problems related to that knowledge. Children who know more about sexuality therefore are better able to make choices about sexuality. Children exposed to images of sexuality therefore are better able to understand abuse when it happens. Children who are only told about sexuality by their abusers have no mental defenses. Therefore pornography equips children with information they can use to defend themselves against potential abusers. A child who knows what anal rape is can tell the police what happened to him while a child who knows only what his abusers say lacks even the vocabulary to identify that he has been abused and what that abuse was (children are forced to endure many invasive painful things - how many report enemas, flu shots, spankings, painful bath "scrubbings", etc.?). Information is power. We should empower our children. Please think of the children and empower them with useful and helpful graphic imagery of sexuality. (Alternative reality dream over. We all know protecting children means keeping them ignorant.) [[User:WAS 4.250|WAS 4.250]] ([[User talk:WAS 4.250|talk]]) 04:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

So....children need to know what anal rape is so that they can explain to the police what it was after it happens to them?

Alternative reality, indeed

[Doc glasgow]

===Alternative reality?===

...pornography equips children with information they can use to defend themselves against potential abusers...

Yeah, that's why professional child psychologists always keep copies of "Hot and steamy" in the desk drawer?

I'm really getting sick of ignorant amateurs playing pop-psychology with children's welfare to justify their own masturbation material.

But then Wikipedia full of eloquent amateurs speaking confidently in utter ignorance, who'd guess?

This post has been edited by Doc glasgow: Mon 12th May 2008, 8:29am

[the fieryangel]

Erik Moeller's "brand new ED article" is featured on the front page of that site today....

It's actually pretty balanced for an ED article. There's a link to this thread too....

The Valleywag article picked up by a French Blog. and the "Virgin Killer" controversy is on another French Blog....

So much for this being an exclusively American problem as some are trying to suggest...

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 10:15am

[the fieryangel]

Danny Wool : Time for Erik to go

With evidence presented here
and here plus these cool ways to save porn.

There's apparently more to come....

[Moulton]

And this article is slightly less than NPOV. Check out the links, where they go, and who put them there.

Someone might like to re-write that article, for the good of humanity.

Here is the opening paragraph of the article that Doc Glasgow is directing to our attention...

James W. Prescott is an American developmental psychologist, whose research focused on the origins of violence, particularly as it relates to a lack of mother-child bonding.

One of the references (now deleted) went to Erik Moeller's website, which purports to be a resource on Prescott's research. Moeller's website is headlined...

THE ORIGINS OF PEACE AND VIOLENCE
Deprivation of Physical Affection as a Main Cause of Depression, Aggression and Drug Abuse

Now it's not for me to say if that website meets WP's standards for a citable reference. I am hardly an expert on WP's current standards for accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media.

But if the goal is to rewrite the Prescott article with some more encyclopedic content, it occurred to me that Prescott's theories on the roots of violence could be compared and contrasted to two others that I know to be well-grounded...

Another good source for the roots of violence in the culture is Rene Girard.

Also James Gilligan.

To which GBG reacts...

Another? Which previously discussed sources are you endorsing? I think Mr. Glasgow was troubled that the Prescott article was distorted by Erik's "pro child sex" views.

I am neither endorsing nor critiquing the sources for Prescott's theories. Instead I am offering suggested sources for comparing and contrasting Prescott's theories (however sourced) to alternative ones. It occurs to me that a reader coming to that article would be more interested in comparative theories of violence in the culture than in snickering over Erik Moeller's presentation of Prescott's analysis.

If, as you say, Doc Glasgow was troubled by Erik's slant, one of the things that is needed is another point of view to counterbalance the one Erik favors.

By the way, there are also some interesting comparative theories on mother-child bonding, based on recent research on the role of Oxytocin in mediating that bond. It occurs to me that readers of the encyclopedia might appreciate an introduction to those interesting ideas, as well.

Do you see, gentlemen? I am proposing to transform articles like that into something more worthy of an encyclopedic treatment of a subject.

[the fieryangel]

Do you see, gentlemen? I am proposing to transform articles like that into something more worthy of an encyclopedic treatment of a subject.

I wish that someone who knew something about the subject (Kato, perhaps) would do an analysis of the information in the WP Prescott article, the material on EM's site and the usually accepted theories among child psychologists to be able to speak intelligently about exactly what type of POV position is being put forward and how this POV differs from the usually accepted norm.

I am not at all an expert on this subject, but this does need analysis from an expert.

(rewriting the article is outside of this discussion, Moulton. Could you please stay on topic or start a thread about this article in the articles subsection?)

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 11:26am

[the fieryangel]

Do you see, gentlemen? I am proposing to transform articles like that into something more worthy of an encyclopedic treatment of a subject.

I wish that someone who knew something about the subject (Kato, perhaps) would do an analysis of the information in the WP Prescott article, the material on EM's site and the usually accepted theories among child psychologists to be able to speak intelligently about exactly what type of POV position is being put forward and how this POV differs from the usually accepted norm.

I am not at all an expert on this subject, but this does need analysis from an expert.

(rewriting the article is outside of this discussion, Moulton. Could you please stay on topic or start a thread about this article in the articles subsection?)

I've sent a PM to Kato asking him to comment on this....

[Moulton]

I am not at all an expert on this subject, but this does need analysis from an expert.

(rewriting the article is outside of this discussion, Moulton. Could you please stay on topic or start a thread about this article in the articles subsection?)

With all due respect, Doc Glasgow did open the door to the need to rewrite the article on Prescott, "for the good of humanity".

I regret that this point is not one that interests you. Please feel free to ignore my contributions here if they do not interest you.

But notwithstanding KillerChihuahua's theories on the issue, I really do have an interest in seeing articles brought up to encyclopedic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics.

As it happens, I do have some (limited) familiarity in alternative theories of violence in the culture, as well as theories about breakdowns in mother-child bonding.

[the fieryangel]

A very interesting text, which may be relevant to this discussion (I've only just started reading it, but it seems to be spot-on in a number of ways) :

D. Solove : the Future of Reputation GOSSIP, RUMOR, AND PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET

As it happens, I do have some (limited) familiarity in alternative theories of violence in the culture, as well as theories about breakdowns in mother-child bonding.

Well, why don't you make a comment on the subject at hand then?

This post has been edited by the fieryangel: Mon 12th May 2008, 12:41pm