Talk:Cult and Ritual Abuse

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This article was nominated for deletion on 2 April 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

Article violates NPOV[edit]

. . . and in so many ways, too. The first sentence contains two biased, unsupported sweeping generalizations (I am deleting "discredited" and amending "most" to "some"). The body of the article heavily features the opinions of Joel Best. Who is Joel Best, and what are his credentials, that he should be given the lion's share of attention in this article? Then we get an opinion by a Freemason (!) explored at some length. References to authorities in the psychiatric profession who found the book of value are barely noted. Given its failure to meet minimal demands of scholarly method, this article needs a thorough rewrite, or deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Driftglass (talk • contribs) 17:14, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your change of 'most scholars' to 'some scholars' I do not agree with; wouldn't it be true to say that satanic ritual abuse has indeed been discredited by most scholars? That's what the article on satanic ritual abuse seems to say. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 20:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The part of the sentence in which the change you mention occurs does not deal with whether most/some scholars regard SRA as "discredited", but is instead about whether they regard it as a form of "moral panic". If you wish to make the claim that "most" scholars agree it is a form of moral panic, a citation is needed. Pending confirmation of this claim from a reliable reference source, "some" strikes me as suitably vague.--Driftglass (talk) 21:46, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've been thinking about the point you raised, FQ, and it has finally dawned on me that the problem with the first sentence has been the presence of irrelevancies. "Discredited" and the whole "moral panic" business do not belong in this article, which is about a *book*, and not about SRA per se. The link to the main wikipedia article is there, and anyone who wants to investigate arguments or look for citations about whether or not SRA is "discredited" or a "moral panic" should follow the link. The only conceivable function of this article is to furnish information about the book, its authors, its contents, and the way it has been received by critics, and so on. So I'm cutting "moral panic" altogether, and also changing "concept" (a strange word to use in this context) to "phenomenon".--Driftglass (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That SRA is a moral panic sets the context for the article because it is about SRA. I've replaced the "moral panic" along with eight reference to justify. SRA has now swung away from being a hysteria to a scene of shame in child protection services, and only fringe conspiracy nuts still give it credibility. Noblitt's latest book on the phenomenon attracted so little interest from the mainstream press that he had to self-publish, and the only contemporary references to it in scientific journals are throwaway, or extremely low impact publications. The rest of the changes I'm OK with. Who found the book of use? When did they find it of use? When the moral panic was still in place? When it was winding down? Who cites it now? The Freemason is cited because Noblitt himself cites Freemasonry in the book as among the child abusers, and as King points out, he is citing known frauds. He cites Michael Warnke and the Taxil hoax - both discredited before the publication of the book, and the Taxil hoax more than a century before. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 11:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the interests of neutrality, I'm placing the book review of the Journal of Psychotherapy review first, given the academic credibility of the journal.

Joel Best is a well-known researcher of "new religious movements" who has claimed that everyone who takes allegations of ritualistic abuse seriously is part of the "Anti-Satanism Movement". His opinions are given disproportionate emphasis on this page.

I'm deleting the reference to Schultz. Schultz's published work on sexual abuse characterises sex between a man and boy as "constructive, nurturing or neutral" [see Schultz, S. (1982). "Child sexual abuse in historical perspective." Journal of Social Work and Human Sexuality 1: 21-36).]

WLU, if you are going to take Noblitt and Perskin to task for dodgy references, then you need to do your homework as well.

--Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And WLU's extensive quotes from a random "Freemason" source, which were overwhelmingly pejorative, are also NPOV and have been deleted.

It's a clearly violation of NPOV that the glowing review in the Journal of Psychotherapy recieves one sentence, whilst online non-peer reviewed sources such as random Freemasons and LeRoy Schultz get their own paragraphs. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 00:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Deleted the claim that SRA is considered a "moral panic by most scholars". Such a claim is not supported by the cited sources.

For instance, Katherine Faller's book has been cited to support this claim. In fact, her book contradicts it. The book that includes references to Faller's own clinical work with ritually abused children. Much of Faller's research details her work with women and children who have been ritually abused e.g.

Faller, K. C. (1988). The Spectrum of Sexual Abuse in Daycare: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Family Violence, 3(4), 283 - 298.

Faller, K. C. (1991). Poly-incestuous families: An exploratory study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 6(3), 310 - 322.

Faller, K. C. (1995). A Clinical Sample of Women Who Have Sexually Abused Children. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 4(3), 13-28.

Faller, K. C. and C. Plummer (1996). Multi-Offender/Multi-Victim Cases of Sexual Abuse: The Impact of Acquittal. Children's Legal Rights Journal(16), 23 - 30.

And Nathan and Snedeker are not scholars, they are journalists.

Seems that the author has just run a google scholar search on "ritual abuse" and "moral panic" and cited whatever comes up, without bothering to read them. --Biaothanatoi (talk) 01:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it were almost anyone else, I'd consider your comments, but you've lied about the credibility of sources before. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 08:34, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And mis-represented. I wonder if Ms. Faller has published anything supporting the credibility of SRA accusations in the 13 years since the most recent article? I've read all the books I've cited, thanks, and they're all overwhelmingly critical. Nathan is a journalist, Snedeker is a lawyer I believe. The book is also seen as one of several that definitively started the debunking of the panic, and certainly represents the mainstream now. SRA is seen as bullshit, that's where the weight should go. And incidentally, if you reviewed the google books links that accompany the first citation, you'd see verbatim quotes which state the SRA is discredited and no longer taken seriously by most scholars. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:56, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]