WLU

Please note that I usually don't do e-mail; if it's about wikipedia use my talk page.

If I judge it requires discretion, I'll contact you. This is tremendously one-sided. I assure you, I feel terrible about it. Really I do.

Note that my contributions are down a lot these days, I'm busy with other stuff, but otherwise fine. Also note that for some reason I'm not getting e-mail alerts when this page is edited, so for important issues please send me an e-mail directly.

Precious anniversary

Three years ago ...

fringe topics
... you were recipient no. 356 of Precious, a prize of QAI!

It's five years now! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

... and six! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:32, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

... and seven --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Ritual Abuse

Dear WLU, is my assumption correct that your of the opinion that faith based abuse doesn't occur? And why exactly would you come to that conclusion given the number of media reports, police investigations and court cases? As described in Ritual Child Abuse this type of abuse occurs in many communities. Subsets of the Nigerian community for example. I would just be very interested as to why it is that you want to present the topic in that manner. I would be very interested in talking to you or communicating via e-mail on this topic. Let me know if that would be of interest.--Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 09:35, 29 January 2020 (UTC) I did also link the article Ritual child abuse for disambiguation in the article Ritual abuse, that you wrote 68 % of.--Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 09:36, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I have no opinion on faith-based abuse. The satanic ritual abuse moral panic was a moral panic, and the few "real" cases were people dressing up in robes while raping children - not an organized satanic cult. In other words, the "ritual" aspects were secondary to the rape.

I am not interested in communicating on this further. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:48, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a bit premature to say welcome back but, hey, I have to work with I've got, so welcome back! Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Definitely not "welcome back", which is a pity. For wikipedia. Because I'm amazing. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:35, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't my intention to emphasise the "ritual" aspect of this. From what I understand mostly this has nothing to do with any kind of faith but rather with organised crime and power. However when it does occur that groups get to gather and in organised ways rape, torture and kill children and adults then the victims (if they survive) are often not believed because people find the article on ritual abuse and come to the conclusion that everything is made up. This is absolutely not fair and horrible for the victims and makes it hard to stop these crimes from going on... That is all I wanted to say. I would really like to collaborate on having an article next to satanic ritual abuse that described actual cases of extreme organised sexual absue, for which much evidence can be found in different countries and cultures from all over the world. I'll if I'll find someone else to work on that with then...--Sparrow (麻雀) 🐧 17:40, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

My concern is that, while the ritual abuse moral panic is a distinct "thing", a social phenomena that is written about in a coherent manner in the scholarly literature. The Ritual Child Abuse page, in addition to its capitalization problems, seems to trip over two aspects of WP:NOT, specifically WP:OR and WP:NOTDIR. As for being original research, a quick skim of the references, for instance, seem to be closer to the satanic ritual abuse page than anything else (McFadyen 1993, Richardson, 2015, and Scott, 2001 are, from my recall, about the satanic ritual abuse moral panic, though from an uncritical believer perspective) and would likely be better placed there. The rest is just kind of a list of cultural practices that have no real link to each other. Are the lip plates of the Mursi tribe actually a form of "ritual child abuse"? Certainly tattooing young girls in the Apatani tribe so they would not be abducted doesn't strike me as even close to "ritual" abuse. And the definition of "abuse" is very culturally determined, since within a specific cultural context it might be seen as abusive to not give a child ritual tattoos, lip extenders, and neck rings. While I personally consider such practices distasteful, within the culture it's considered beautifying. Breast flattening is another example where it causes harm, but is done to preserve chastity. Where is the "ritual"? An overall comment or question would be, where is the reliable source that labels these things to be "ritual child abuse" rather than "cosmetic mutilation"? Right now it seems like it is the wikipedia editors who are putting these items into a bucket, when it should be the sources that do so.

And where do dowries come into it? Where is the ritual? Dowries are at least an economic issue more than they would seem to be a ritual practice. Why bring up fire-related deaths?

Overall the article strikes me as extremely problematic and based more on the beliefs of the editors writing the page rather than the consensus, or even disagreement, of relevant scholars. I don't see why there should be a page where all of these items are listed in a hodge-podge, rather than the information now found on the page simply being part of a section in a main article. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:35, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Nomination of Mumps outbreaks in the 21st century for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Mumps outbreaks in the 21st century is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mumps outbreaks in the 21st century until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Velayinosu (talk) 02:05, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Precious anniversary

Precious

Nine years!

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:24, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

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