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I edited the social security and retirement section to reflect updated citations and corrected inaccuracies. I also divided it by country so that it was easier to read and update. LikaTika (talk) 20:46, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Updated introduction for clarity and included more information. Removed the bit about historical roles of men relating to their physical capabilities, not germane to the introduction but might have a place elsewhere. LikaTika (talk) 17:21, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why does the MR intro say "claimed by men/boys" whereas the WR article says "claimed for"? This seems inconsistent and introduces subtle, yet important bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 03:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really seem appropriate to continue to cite information from the 1980 census. Not only is it outdated, but it is also mis-cited. I suggest the removal of the sentence "Wages are not the only factor in determining spending power. 1984 U.S. Census Bureau data indicates "women who are heads of households have a net worth that is 141 percent of the net worth of men who are heads of households.[70]" Ideas? LikaTika (talk) 06:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the entire "wages" section should be removed, as it is covered under the income disparities section and it is not rights related. LikaTika (talk) 03:38, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and have deleted the section. Although it did have sources, none of them dealt with the issue in the context of men's rights. It would be inappropriate for us, as Wikipedia editors, to attempt to synthesize statistics like that. If reliable secondary sources discuss the content of the wages section in the context of men's rights then it could be appropriate to include, but until those sources are located that section doesn't belong in this article. Kevin (talk) 06:08, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It does not seem appropriate to include the letter-writing campaign of a single person under this heading. Plus, the first link is dead. I propose removing these two sentences "In 2009, Reece Wilkes a 16 year old student from Northallerton, North Yorkshire called on the Minister for Women and Equality, Harriet Harman to support the idea of a Minister for Men.[48] Later Reece was to criticise the response from the Government Equalities Office, stating that the response was a "cop-out" and that they did not address the issues that he had raised." LikaTika (talk) 06:50, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Removed this section, see WP:Undue LikaTika (talk) 03:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any credible information about the Australian policy information regarding "In Australian immigration policy a distinction is regularly made between women and children (often treated erroneously as equivalent to "family groups"[citation needed]) and single men" and this sentence itself is both poorly worded and biased. I think it should be removed if no citations are forthcoming. LikaTika (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This seems pretty reliable, section "Residential Housing Projects" link — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 03:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How should we define the scope of this article, keeping in mind especially WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, and WP:SYNTH? Should we talk about things like the magna carta or Constitution that definitely were advances for the rights of men? (Perhaps we should even move this article to something like 'claims of the men's right activist movement'?) Kevin (talk) 06:35, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm developing a separate "men's rights movement" article on my userpage, and it has a 'claims of the men's rights movement' section, so it is probably more appropriate there. That article will be about the modern "men's rights movement" while this should be about the rights of men, and I think should include historical rights for men as you've mentioned. LikaTika (talk) 03:50, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With that in mind, I commented out the history of the modern men's rights movement, as it refers to the history of those groups and not the history of the rights of men. LikaTika (talk) 07:38, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We already have the articles masculism and men's rights movement in India so that MRA views of men's rights should be more than sufficiently covered. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In general, I am going to be removing any section that does not have:

1. at least one reliable source (WP:V)
2. at least one reliable source that explicitly connects the issue to men's rights (WP:NOR)
3. at least one reliable source talking about the issue that does not simply say that the issue is a concern for men's rights activist groups. (WP:FRINGE)

I'm not going to be removing these completely, but will also be looking to repair:

1. Any section where MRA positions are presented as mainstream positions, or sections where most of the section is talking about MRA positions (WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE)
2. Any section that talks about issues that are specific to the global north that makes statements like "A primary concern about men's rights is..." (WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE)

In general, I will be repairing sections where possible rather than completely deleting them. Any sections I delete that you believe you are able to repair can be recovered from the history of the page; feel free to readd them, as long as their sourcing problems have been fixed. Under the general principles I enumerated above, I'm about to rewrite the lede because it makes unsourced claims (that are not sourced later in the article, either) that are not supported in mainstream sources as far as I know. The child support section that was just added is also very problematic as it stands. I'm not opposed to the article talking about child support, but currently that section presents a fringe position with no counterpoint using a single source that doesn't entirely support what the section states. A good first step towards making the child support section better would be to rephrase it as "Stephen Baskerville, describewhoheishere, states..." rather than "Members of the father's rights movement state" and then to substantially expand the section with mainstream positions. I'll try to do this myself in the near future, but if I can't get around to it today I may end up taking the section out until someone can bring it in to compliance with WP:NPOV. Kevin (talk) 16:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With WP:NOR in mind, I removed the education section. It only listed gender differences in education and was not tied to men's rights. LikaTika (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Should all sections referring to SIF (Save Indian Family) be removed under WP:FRINGE? LikaTika (talk) 18:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just chiming in here - on rereading this again after a few years I'd agree with Kevin's points and wrt parts like those mentioning SIF the references used are gven undue weight and should be removed under that part of teh NPOV policy rather than WP:FRINGE--Cailil ^talk 18:37, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, SIF is part of Men's Rights and should be included, if not expanded. TickTock2 (talk) 19:01, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SIF is a men's rights advocacy organization. It is related to men's rights, and their viewpoints can be mentioned in this article, but only if they are given proportionate weight. SIF is not in any way 'part of men's rights.' Right now, they are given undue weight. The problem can be fixed by improving and expanding the article - but in places where it is not practicable to expand the existing material enough to alleviate WP:UNDUE issues, we will need to delete information dealing with SIF. Some of the material currently present in this article may be appropriate in an article about the men's rights advocacy movement or another article like that (as long as we still counterbalance it with mainstream viewpoints) - but MRA claims cannot represent a majority of the general article on men's rights. Kevin (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's an issue that has relevance to men's rights, so I don't see how you can attempt to say it's not part of men's rights. It's similar to attempting to have a Women's Rights page without mentioning feminism. How are they given undue weight? They are mentioned three places on the page, first in the picture, one in relevance in the Domestic Violence section and then in the links section. I would counter that's not undue weight. Undue weight applies if it's receiving MORE attention then it deserves and it simply does not, and please no one is asserting that MRA are a majority on this article but it is relevant. TickTock2 (talk) 21:26, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I first started editing this article, MRA claims were certainly a majority of the article. I (and Lika) have greatly reduced the portion of content in the article that was primarily MRA content with no counterpoint. The article is better than it was, but it is still not fixed - and it's original state, yes, MRA claims were an overwhelming majority of the article. I did not see before posting my latest response that Lika had actually already commented out the section about SIF that I objected to, in this diff. I don't see a huge problem with the remaining mentions of SIF in that article, but that paragraph had to go. It contained no reliable source and made a claim "...With the increasing abuse of Dowry Laws against men..." that is massively POV. There's absolutely no reason why a minor MRA organization warranted a whole paragraph near the start of the article, and the paragraph was riddled with problems (WP:UNDUE included). Kevin (talk) 21:47, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, to be clear, I don't intend to leave this article as a gutted shell. I know more stuff needs to be added - I'm just removing everything that needs to be removed first, so that it's clear what is needed going forward. After I've removed or repaired the content in the article that is not compliant with policy, I'll start digging through sources and adding additional appropriate content. Feedback on what kind of content this should be is welcome - I'm not sure what exactly the scope of this article should really be - there's a talk section about it one section up. Kevin (talk) 21:53, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the same page. I think a wider scope will be especially helpful. I've included a section on ancient Greece to get started on history, now that we've removed the history of the modern MRM. LikaTika (talk) 23:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would encourage additions such as compulsive military service or punishments such as castration in Ancient Greece and the middle ages. TickTock2 (talk) 13:18, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With that in mind, I added additional information in the "history" section. LikaTika (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I must say the only additions I have seen to the page have been very "lightly" added, mostly been removed. I hope to see some additions, for example your comment about Child Support links being hard to find very disappointing as a glance at say Father's Rights Movement, has plenty of sources that are very easily added here and relevant. I hope to see some useful additions. TickTock2 (talk) 12:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also bring up the idea of basing this similarly to the Womens's Rights, as far as page layout goes. Does anyone object to that idea? TickTock2 (talk) 13:20, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right that so far it has mostly been the subtraction and not addition of content. I've pretty much been intending to get rid of all of the stuff that needs to go out, and then add stuff that needs to go in. I am doing this partly because the presence of incredibly unbalanced POV material is, in my mind, worse than the absence of some things that should be here. Once the article is cleaned up of ridiculous stuff, I'll start adding more non-ridiculous stuff. The women's rights article is generally not too far off from what this article should eventually be. Although the treatment of the modern women's rights movement on that page will be different than the treatment of MRA's here - we'll have to make it clear on this page that MRA's are (or at least so far have been) a minor movement that has not enjoyed the mainstream political or cultural success. We also probably won't be able to have the same sections talking about modern international conventions that the women's rights page has, just because there aren't really modern international conventions dealing with the rights of specifically men - or at least I can't think of any similarly big ones offhand. Kevin (talk) 20:22, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed a large section of the "violence" topic and retitled it "Domestic violence" which seemed to reflect it more accurately. The section I commented out seems to be a debate regarding statistics, not men's rights. LikaTika (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, and completely acceptable, although I would leave it open to be converted back to general violence if need be.
I would also point out, to keep in mind this is not an article about Men vs Women, so some of comparisons between women and men are not needed, for example the Athens comment, could instead discuss the mandatory ownership of property and military conscription needed to be citizens. TickTock2 (talk) 04:00, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm getting two different sources credited with creating the term "male abortion" - http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/opinion/10tierney.html/partner/rssnyt?_r=1 here, it's Frances Goldscheider, a professor of sociology at Brown University - And in the article it's Melanie McCulley, a South Carolina attorney. I think we might actually have it wrong, that McCulley was using an already existing term. Thoughts? Better citations? LikaTika (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So, I was just wondering how is the religions related to men's rights again? Maybe I am a little confused. TickTock2 (talk) 05:12, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I did those additions. I more than welcome suggestions for reorganizing them, but I kept finding men's rights that were related to religion instead of country, and wasn't sure where to put those. It is a right or a freedom set aside for, or affecting men. LikaTika (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to commit to a certain spelling of Quran - I found on the main article and on apparently all others, it was transliterated as Quran instead of Qur'an - for the sake of regularity I think we should use that spelling as well. LikaTika (talk) 02:08, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to sort out where to fit in purdah. Suggestions other than a new section of it's own? It doesn't really belong in "history" and it's cultural, not religious. Ideas? LikaTika (talk) 21:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would imagine that would belong more with the Woman's right article then men's, as I think we will end up having a comparing men vs women article. TickTock2 (talk) 14:58, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is, however a right to be free from purdah that men maintain. However, men are still subject to the gender segregation of purdah. In any discussion of men's and women's rights you're comparing men and women, otherwise it's a discussion of another topic altogether. LikaTika (talk) 19:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The right to be "free" from something seems like a strange decision and can make this page infinitely long. TickTock2 (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So far, it has been organized by country. As it becomes more detailed, we may want to merge it into groups (Asia, Europe and so on). Ideas? LikaTika (talk) 22:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That may be the best idea TickTock2 (talk) 14:57, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted information in the "China" section because the source does not support it [1]. The the article "Complementarity and History Misrecognizing Gender in the Pacific" discusses gender inequality in Polynesia. Last time I checked, Polynesia was not China. Moreover, the article does not mention anything about polyandry being a right or being a right until 1960. The only paragraph that mentions anything about women having multiple partners is on page 266:

As there was a group of high ranking women, there was a class of low status male servants, some of whom were secondary husbands, clearly distinguished in status from the primary husband in an elite household. Polyandry was thus embedded in relations of domestic service and is misread if seen as a fundamentally conjugal relation. Male and female servants were me'ie in relation to other people. Between these servants and a group of other dependents who lived as 'tenants' on others' lands, there was an intermediate class of commoners who lived on their own land but had no servants. The fact that only men could eat what was produced by the other sex created a potential inequality which was only systematically realized among this group.

(I hope I'm not violating copyright laws by posting this paragraph here. If I am please feel free to remove the paragraph.)

This is clearly different from "whereas women maintained the right to have multiple husbands until 1960." Please be careful with sources because it takes quite a bit of time to correct descriptions. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 01:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've updated sources for it showing that it happened in Tibet and with the Mouso people. TickTock2 (talk) 14:56, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TickTock2, I undid you changes [2]. I do not doubt that polyandry has been practiced by some women but you confuse practicing polyandry with having the legal right to practicing polyandry. In Saudi Arabia, for example, polygamy is legal see this OECD source but there is no indication that polyandry is. If you have information that polyandry was or is legal in some countries, please add it. But please do not insert information about elites in Polynesia or matriarchal societies where polyandry is practiced but not legal. This is WP:UNDUE and outside the scope if this article (although it might fit nicely in our article about Polyandry). --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 15:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

SonicYouth, With all due respect, you are wrong. You are not reading my sources, or even reading the Polyandry article, that you yourself mentioned

In Tibet, polyandry has been outlawed since the Chinese takeover of the area, so it is difficult to measure the incidence of polyandry in what may have been the world's most "polyandrous" society.[2]

 :::As such, please stop undoing my changes if you have a problem discuss it here. TickTock2 (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your very first source was the article "Complementarity and History Misrecognizing Gender in the Pacific". It said nothing about polyandry being legal in Polynesia at any time and I am tempted to think that you did not read the article. Your second source is this. Is says that the Muoso, a matriarchal society, practiced a form of polyandry, not that this form of polyandry was legal. Your third source [3] says that polyandry has been practiced in some societies but not that it has been legal in those societies. It then goes on to say that Prince Peter of Denmark states that polyandry has been seen in a certain way by the Chinese and outlawed. If polyandry was legal in Tibet at some point, there should be no trouble finding a reliable source to support it. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 16:49, 4 October 2011 (UTC) [reply]

How about this one http://www.tibet.ca/en/newsroom/wtn/archive/old?y=1994&m=12&p=28_1 It says that it was outlawed. It would have to be legal at some point in order for it to be legal would it not? TickTock2 (talk) 17:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you read more of the source I quoted earlier it says

Traditional villages were disbanded, people were sent to forced work camps and a strict sexual morality of monogamy an aboliation of premartial sex and a one child per family policy were instituted.

TickTock2 (talk) 17:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to revert the China/1982 edit in a minute, because it is not supported by the source. All the source confirms is that there was a 1982 law under which it was illegal - that doesn't mean there wasn't a previous set of laws under which it was also illegal. To support the statement as it is currently in the article, we need a source explicitly stating that it was legal before 1982 or explicitly stating that the law in 1982 was the first law regulating it, etc. Kevin (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What would you say would be supported then? How about if I add in this source? http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=blc0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=CcwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2638,6668094&dq=polyandry+sri+lanka&h which says "In Tibet, Polandry was outlawed by the Chinese..." or this one http://books.google.com/books?id=yDbZ8TsKSJIC&pg=PA149&dq=polyandry+in+Tibet+outlawed&hl=en&ei=rtqNTqrQAcr50gGRmLET&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CEEQuwUwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false which says "The Tibetan Marriage law of 1981 banned both polandrry and polygyny." I'd also question the source of the current article as I don't believe Cantonese Love are a very good source. I haven't been able to find a copy of the source as of yet, but I question it. TickTock2 (talk) 17:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've actually found the source for the original statement, http://books.google.com/books?id=N70oG-jetxYC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=9622092845&source=bl&ots=TLZKosmXm4&sig=1q3eszvrtr-NPk4s_bNS9WfR1Ps&hl=en&ei=_uCNTo3xK6jw0gGLgak0&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false . I haven't read the entire thing but I didn't see any search results for wife, concubines or anything of the sort. It's a English translation of poetry, I welcome anyone looking through if I missed anything. TickTock2 (talk) 17:16, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I cannot find the sentence "The Tibetan Marriage law of 1981 banned both polyandry and polygyny" in the book China's Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation. This is the third source that does not quite support what you claim.

We've been over this. If polyandry was legal in Tibet, there should be a reliable source. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and every-time you have attempted to discredit my sources for no apparent reason. Please look at page 149, 3rd completely paragraph first sentence and it starts off with "The Tibetan Marriage law of 1981 banned both polandry and polygyny." and continues with "The practice greatly declined since the rebellion of 1959 and even more due to the Cultural Revolution". Another way to find it would be to use the Google search function. Unless you have any further objections I am going to edit the Chinese section and put it in as sourced, since the other source (the Cantonese Love songs) do not cite as sourced unless you found something I am missing. TickTock2 (talk) 13:32, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As Kgorman-ucb already explained to you we need a source explicitly stating that polyandry was legal before [insert date here] or explicitly stating that the law in [insert date here] was the first law regulating it. Simply stating that polyandry was not permitted under a specific does not necessarily mean that it was legal up until then. We've been over this, TickTock2.

I know precisely what is on page 149 (or, more accurately, on page 175) of the the book China's Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation. The quote "The Tibetan Marriage law of 1981 banned both polandry and polygyny" is nowhere to be found in that book. The book does not support the claim that polyandry has been legal until the Tibetan Marriage law of 1981. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sonic - do you have easy access to "China's minority cultures: identities and integration since 1912" written by Colin Mackerras, published in 1995? I think it may support TT's claim. I don't have full access to it right away but can probably get it on monday if you don't. Kevin (talk) 19:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do. I cannot find the sentence "The Tibetan Marriage law of 1981 banned both polandry and polygyny" in the book. It does say (on page 175, for example) that the Tibetan Marriage law was introduced in 1981 and that under the law bigamy is not permitted. This does not mean that bigamy was legal until 1981 which would be relevant for this article. Frankly, this article has been in a dismal state for years and now that it's under reconstruction I think we need sources that directly and explicitly support what we say. If TickTock2 wants to say that polyandry was legal somewhere at some point, then he must provide a source that states that directly and explicitly.

Kevin, I'd be very grateful if you kept an eye on the article in the weeks to come. The rewrite is off to a bad start with sources being added that don't support the claims, tendentious wording, and reintroduction of MRA arguments (e.g., the section "Custody" that I hid yesterday). --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been quite busy but I am intending to make another pass through the article removing inappropriate content according to the guidelines that I outlined a couple sections above. Relatedly: I'm still not sure how I feel about the proper scope of this article, can you look up a couple sections at the section I had about it and comment? Kevin (talk) 20:18, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please look at this link - http://books.google.com/books?id=yDbZ8TsKSJIC&pg=PA149&dq=polyandry+in+Tibet+outlawed&hl=en&ei=rtqNTqrQAcr50gGRmLET&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-preview-link&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CEEQuwUwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false , and re-read. If you still doubt me please look here: http://i.imgur.com/qaZA9.jpg TickTock2 (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that both Kevin and I are looking at Mackerras 1995 instead of Mackerras 2003. But that doesn't change things: The fact that bigamy was not permitted under Marriage Law of 1981 does not necessarily mean that it was legal up until 1981 unless the source states that this was the first law that regulated bigamy in Tibet. Was it legal all the time before 1981 or were there other regulations banning it in (...) which were then overturned? It would be really helpful if you could find a source stating that bigamy was legal in Tibet until 1981. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I linked you to the article, did you happen to look? I'd like to precede with this article in a good faith manner. I'd appreciate the same service. I've commented out the entire China section in history, because I believe the rest falls under fringe and the other comment is not supported by source. TickTock2 (talk) 16:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking there might be some confusing regarding zina and rape accusations. TickTock, if you'd like to revise it, I recommend you read a little further into your own sources, and even the ones available here on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LikaTika (talk • contribs) 19:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain what you believe I am missing. I'm aware of the difference between the two, and as such she can file the complaint without the necessary evidence to convict, however if the court fails to convict (and they will without the necessary evidence). TickTock2 (talk) 20:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Please don't forget to sign your comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TickTock2 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Usually I sign, sorry for the oversight this time. Regarding zina and prosecution in Pakistan - of course, it is unlawful to have sexual congress outside of a married relationship. However, the laws against zina in Pakistan are used to protect men from rape accusations, not the other way around. A complaint against a man for rape will lead to a woman's prosecution for zina, and often hear death, not a prosecution against a man for rape, as it is nearly impossible to prove. LikaTika (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in favor of new pictures for this article, the only pic coming from SIF seems to give them undue weight. LikaTika (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]

I'll disagree on the simple fact that it was discussed earlier, it's not undue weight to mention them. P.S. Don't forget to sign. TickTock2 (talk) 20:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is my understanding that a woman was entitled to support from an exhusband for the iddat, not lifetime. The Hindu Adopt. and Maint. Act only refers to married persons, see the link used at http://www.vakilno1.com/bareacts/hinduadoptionsact/s18.htm - it does have an exception for a woman who is still married but living separately. LikaTika (talk) 22:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's why it's under marriage section and not under divorce. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Adoptions_and_Maintenance_Act_%281956%29 for more details. TickTock2 (talk) 20:11, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am removing the sentence "These rights are determined by many different ways, such as the cultural norms or laws of respective location." It makes a claim that is way too significant to state without disclaimer in the lede of an article. Whether or not human rights are culturally relative is a matter of significant contention and way out of the scope of this article to discuss in depth. Kevin (talk) 19:34, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to have to question that statement that it is outside of the scope of this article as we are address religious men's rights, which would be determined by cultural norms. Furthermore, if rights were not subjective of your current location, then why are we separating the rights by geographical location. Rights (at least in the fashion we are talking about in this article) are not absolute, and as such that should be acknowledged in the article. TickTock2 (talk) 20:01, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Kevin's edit.

I disagree with TickTock2's claim that "religious men's rights" are "determined by cultural norms" but I do agree that the structuring of this article by country or region doesn't make much sense to me. Move the info from the section "China" to the section "Marriage", create a section "Property rights", "Military service", "Violence" etc. and move relevant info there. There are almost 200 independent nations, and we can't cover all of them. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, can you explain that logic? That doesn't make any sense to me. How can the rights not be respective of the location, when we acknowledge that each area has their own laws. TickTock2 (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The operative word is religious. There is a Catholic ban on ordaining women, i.e, the Catholic church gives men, but not women, the right to become priests. This ban exists regardless of your country of residence and the "cultural norms" that are found in that country. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's inappropriate to have an unqualified statement in the lede of an article that rights are culturally relative. Legal/statutory rights are relative but this article is not titled "Legal rights of men," it's titled "Men's rights." Even if no one has yet written about natural rights in this article, they are within the scope of this article. The lede is an overview of the subject as a whole, not an overview of the 50% of the article we've already written. We cannot have a lede that makes an incorrect statement about the subject as a whole. Feel free to rewrite the sentence in a way that is correct. As it stood, it was not. (Although if you do rewrite it, please include a source that supports it.) Kevin (talk) 20:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What other rights are we going to discuss then the "legal" rights? What's the scope of the article that you have in mind? As I see nothing of the sort being discussed currently. With all due respect, the article is about what the article is about, As it "currently" has to be right, and can be changed in the future to accommodate those changes right? Look at Women's rights as an example, they start with "In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed.", but yet they discuss other rights (natural rights) granting it's a small paragraph, but why would something similar not apply here? TickTock2 (talk) 18:14, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a substantial difference between the lede used in the women's rights article, and the lede that used to be used here. I would be completely fine with something similar to the lede used in the women's rights article here assuming it was supported by a reliable source, but there is a massive difference between "in some places these rights are institutionalized whereas in others they are ignored or suppressed" (the women's rights lede) vs "your rights depend on where you are" (the former lede here.) They mean two completely different things. (Busy day, but I'll respond to other talk sections later.) Kevin (talk) 21:12, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lede is completely unsupported and not a good summary of the article as it stands. It only cites a single, non-reliable source and needs a major overhaul. LikaTika (talk) 05:41, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you mostly. WND is not a reliable source for factual information (past consensus at the reliable source noticeboard holds this) although it can be an appropriate source for the views of the groups who speak there. But the lede to a major article like this should not be focused on the views of fringe groups (which is all WND can reliably represent.) I haven't changed it too much simply because I am having trouble coming up with an appropriate lede. Kevin (talk) 05:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm far from being an academic when it comes to the Men's Right's movement, but it seems that the History sections is entirely devoted to expressing the POV that Men's Rights are centered around stripping away womens' rights. Though sourced, it seems very POV, and is more in line with a misogynistic form of Patriarchy than what I've come to learn about the Men's Right's Movement.24.85.75.67 (talk) 21:41, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism is not quite the same thing as you just described: Wikipedia:Vandalism SarahStierch (talk) 21:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies. A lapse in thought precipitated the approximation that one's concern for the authenticity of the views in this article would be abundantly apparent. Evidently, the err was on this IP address's part for which whose owner had omitted from memory that this is Wikipedia, and as such, quibbling over the correct terminology on a Discussion page is of utmost importance rather than a brief few moments wasted on the part of one more knowledgeable than they to peruse the item in question so as perchance to verify whether it (the item in question- that being the article unto which this Discussion page is therein attached) merited closer scrutiny. Again, my apologies dear sir or madame, and one shall resign oneself to the belief that the indicated response to the concern in question which was raised is a confirmation only of this article's most exquisitely balanced representation of the subject of which it speaks. Again, sorry for the trouble. I'mma just keep my fingers off the keyboard from now on. On the plus side, I'm learning tons about women's suffering at the hands of men! 24.85.75.67 (talk) 13:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You should feel free to update the article to make it more complete, as long as you keep our editing policies in mind when doing so. Kevin (talk) 03:55, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was more complete. A great deal of content relating to the issues men face in today's society, has been removed since I was last here and replaced with what I can only describe as a feminists depiction of men's rights over women (specifically) historically, culturally and religiously, strategically positioned prior to the legitimate complaints, that have since been watered down to nothing more than a skimming of the content, in what I can only assume is an attempt to garner apathy for the issues men face. I would very much describe removing a good percentage of this pages content and replacing it with very much the opposite intent (IE, changing the definition of men's rights from the movement for men's rights concerns to the phrase defining rights specific to men) as vandalism. It is nothing more than an underhanded attempt to silence an opposing viewpoint. Aspects that have been removed include: Most of the alimony section, Education concerns, Employment concerns, False rape concerns, Custody Concerns (no mention of the Father's rights movement), Health Concerns Suicide, The vast majority of the violence section, Media Portrayal, Sentencing disparities and retirement. What is the point in adding content when it will get washed away, with moderator approval, by feminists that want to control the public discourse. User:Kratch 11 Oct. 2011 —Preceding undated comment added 19:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC).[reply]

It was longer before certainly, but the article was so problematic in its earlier form as to necessitate drastic removals. WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV are pretty much non-negotiable - a longer more complete article would be awesome, but the original article had far too many problems with those policies to fix. And no, we didn't change the definition of the article - the article is 'men's rights' - not 'men's rights activists'. I have no intention of silencing opposing viewpoints: feel free to add more information to this article that is compliant with our content policies (and please understand that neutrality is a fundamental tenet of the encyclopedia.) Kevin (talk) 01:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article was problematic, I suspect, largely due to a difference of perspective on what the article contained. The content originally provided for this article was in regards to men's rights, as in the activism (the male version of feminism), as defined in the article upon creation (22:05, 18 December 2006‎ Severa..."Men's rights is a stream in the men's movement."). You, or others like yourself, have defined men's rights as the concept, which is separate from the activism. This difference in perception has caused you to feel much of the content is inappropriate and off topic, when it was not. The reasonable solution would have been to rename the article to men's rights activism, or something akin, and creating a new page for men's rights as you define it. Instead, this page was gutted, leaving it's original content and intent abandoned, despite feminism being granted a page of it's own. This is why the actions perpetrated on this page have been defined as "silencing". The opposing view comes from the content that has filled the page since, with such comments as "outlawing cruelty to women by their husband or his relatives, are being fought" (which has already been addressed), "men maintained total legal rights over women, as though they were children" (is the "like children" necessary? or is it an ideological jab at men?), the entire England Section is a discussion about a man's power over a woman (largely from a feminist perspective), and the islam's section "This is opposed to the women's awrah which can change depending on the circumstances" (this has no baring on men's rights, but is instead an opportunity to note double standards against women. this line is inappropriate for a "neutral" article). Furthermore, the vast majority of the content is written in an advantages men have over women perspective, rather than a right's men have and don't have perspective, irrespective of women. That particular feminist narrative combined with the removal rather than the changing of name/position of the original article makes this page appear more of an ideological tool against men then a "neutral" article.

That said, I will begin adding content shortly, once time becomes available to me (so as not to be simply a troublemaker). I will include additions such as California's current law openly discriminating (as in, they acknowledge it isn't constitutional, yet they proceeded anyways) against men that allows female felons (but not male) to be released early. The recent policy changes to post secondary facilities that have been described as an assault on due process and equal protection laws. CPS unwillingness to even contact, let alone place a child with the child's father when removed from the mothers custody. Mexican Law which states a mother is automatically granted custody of any child under 7 years of age. Indian law which grants mothers custody automatically, period. VAWA STOP funding guidelines which specifically states programs benefiting men (or children) must also benefit women in order to qualify for funding. A US council for boys to men has been waiting on approval for almost a year, despite near instant approval for a council of women and girls a few years earlier. I will not be surprised to experience a serious push back on these issues. We'll have to see. Kratch (talk) 18:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At least some of the content you are complaining about (like the 'outlawing cruelty' bit) has actually been in the article all along, heh. You are right that a separate article about MRA's is probably warranted. I considered just renaming the article, but little of the content would have been salvageable even doing that - the sourcing was godawful, it was riddled with original research, and it was generally poorly written. If I had renamed it, 80% of the content would still have had to be removed. The article as it stands currently is hardly good - but for the most part at least meets our core content policies, which is more than can be said about the original. (Also - I'm too lazy to find the section link again, but somewhere on this page I outlined the general criteria I was using to remove or keep sections the last time I went over the article - take a look at it, it'll give you a good idea of how to write and source content in a way that will make other people unlikely to remove it. Coincidentally, there are definitely some recent additions that don't hold too well to those standards - I'm going to be going through the article on Tuesday-ish and either fixing or removing any recent additions that have problems.) Kevin (talk) 00:25, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While the line regarding cruelty may have already existed, whoever deleted the sentence leading into it changed the context by doing so. The line leading into it, (IE "The Violence Against Women Act in America is being vehemently opposed by rights groups for discriminating against men.") clearly states the opposition is due to discrimination against men, and by removing it, the context changes from opposition for a justified reason, to simple opposition (as a dedicated editor, I'm sure you are aware of this concept). This is what I'm talking about when describing using this page as an ideological tool. I could understand taking out Vehemently. I could understand requiring a source. But deleting a defining line and leaving it's proceeding sentence without proper context... that's underhanded if done for ideological reasons, or, if performed accidentally, demonstrates a significant deficiency in editing skills and basic language skills. Kratch (talk) 21:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why we can't argue about feminism of whether or not it believes in equality since after all aren't Men's rights supposed to fight against feminism for believing that they don't? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.253.165 (talk • contribs) 03:58, 11 October 2011

Hello again! We actually have a policy that states that Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk pages are not forums to discuss or argue about subjects related to the Wikipedia pages. You can learn more about that policy at this link: WP:NOTFORUM. Thanks for your understanding and interest in Wikipedia! SarahStierch (talk) 04:03, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi everyone, I archived a large portion of this talk page, which makes it more manageable. I advise others to do the same as needed. Just a reminder for those interested in this subject and/or contributing to the article to follow the Wikipedia policy about how to use talk pages. Please visit Wikipedia:TPOC#How_to_use_article_talk_pages to learn more! Thanks so much and for your contributions and interest in Wikipedia! SarahStierch (talk) 03:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to discuss what I believe to be undue weight on women's rights in general in this article. It was brought up (although might have been poorly done), and I think it's a great point. We need more facts relating to actual men's rights instead of just on women's right. I've been trying to add where I can, but it is being undone by several edits. I'd like to bring this up for discussion, what does everyone think? TickTock2 (talk) 16:29, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right, we do. Please feel free to add sections that are relevant, well sourced, and in compliance with our other content policies. Adding more material is still on my to-do list, I just haven't gotten around to it yet (I have a rather lengthy to-do list.) I outlined the criteria I use to judge additions to this page on this talk page section earlier on this page. (My criteria are not definitive or authoritative or anything, but I think they are a pretty good facsimile of Wikipedia's general content policies. If we disagree about the appropriateness of a section, we can of course discuss it and hopefully come to an amicable resolution.) Kevin (talk) 01:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed.

• Ireland discussions when women are allowed to inherit. This is not relevant to men's rights.
• England The sentence containing "this includes almost all of her legal rights". This is not relevant to men's rights. It's wording also implies it was the women's duty to protect and provide for her husband (which is directly contrary to the wiki source). Furthermore, the entire sections "source" links to another wiki article, which I thought failed as a verified source, making this entire section unsourced.
• Pakistan A man not being accused of rape is not a man's right, it is simply that a law did not exist to protect women. This is not relevant to men's rights.
• Rights according to religious tradition Islam. Includes at the end of a sentence "but women are not allowed to have multiple husbands". Is this part necessary? The need to compare is not relevant to "men's rights in a social context". Men can marry multiple wives, that's a man's right, whether women can or not would only be relevant if we were discussing differences in rights or the concerns regarding the loss of or inequity of those rights. I could see it's relevance elsewhere, but not for this section... This same argument follows through to the second paragraph, the sentence involving "This is opposed to the women's ....". A woman's awrah is not relevant. I also note the second paragraph has no citations.
• Christianity Is that a right? or something else? Furthermore, no citations.
• Spousal Notification laws section is written in a purely female-centric manner

--Kratch (talk) 22:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A couple issues surrounding this, Coveture is history, it is not current Marriage law and does not flow into current marriage law, unless there's more sources supporting it that I am missing. I am going to edit it to go back up to the "Regency England" section. I also question why my edit is reverting it to Regency England, as we have not separated any other county into "time frames" as Regency England is only a certain period in English History. Furthermore, I am going to add more content from the source to the English Section. TickTock2 (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Your edit looks mostly fine, but please restore the Blackstone source. Blackstone was formerly used to source both sections that you consolidated, but you took it out. It's hard to imagine a more ironclad/authoritative source on english law then Blackstone, so it's worth retaining (and definitely better than no source...) Kevin (talk) 01:36, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My Apologizes, I meant to include the source, but I've re-added it. Your right, there isn't much better source TickTock2 (talk) 13:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not familiar enough with editing process to comment out the last line "498a in India, outlawing cruelty to women by their husband or his relatives, are being fought by groups such as Save Indian Family Foundation." without deleting it completely. Which contains a subjective interpretation of the stated goals, with only another wiki article as the source. The line establishes the opposition as being towards the "outlawing the right to be cruel to women...", which is nether factual nor supported, even by the wiki article link, which states it is in opposition to the abuse of those laws. If this page is not permitted to be an ideological tool, then that should apply all around. Kratch 22:16, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can comment something out by placing <!-- at the start of the section you wish to comment out, and --> at the end of the section. You don't have to comment everything out though, you can just delete it. Nothing is permanently lost, it can be retrieved from the history of the page. (I often do just comment sections out when I'm not sure if I want to rewrite and reinclude them or just remove them, but it's not at all necessary.) Kevin (talk) 01:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A citation was added for the line "Many women's shelters will assist male victims of domestic abuse" that provides a link to a small, VERY small, list of MEN's shelters. This fails to demonstrate ether that women's shelters offer male victims services, nor that it is many of them that offer such. In fact, I would suggest it demonstrates quite the opposite, and that "many" should be replaced with "very few". Kratch (talk) 02:47, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that a several page document with links to resources all over the world is not "very few" but rather is a good, basic international citation for resources that are available. Additionally, due to the nature of charity work, such as domestic violence shelters, many of them are extremely localized, which makes getting a comprehensive list of all the resources for a given area difficult. For instance, there is no comprehensive world wide list of soup kitchens, but a short list with resources provide leads to a larger number of resources that are regionally, rather than international or nationally based. Domestic Violence shelters are most likely similar. TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 03:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I would argue that a page that links to a small handful of largely MEN's or generic abuse (not women's shelters, as claimed) shelters per COUNTRY, is actually an insignificant number, given last I checked, Toronto had 23 women's shelters (not just resources, SHELTERS) on it's own, more than any single country on that list. I would also add that, many "women's" shelters are provided government funding, so shouldn't be difficult to find. If they are, that should be of concern to people, but should not be an excuse for a failure to provide a source for a claim.Kratch (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It used to look like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Men%27s_rights&oldid=449138521 Now we have a history section which does not talk about the history of 'men's rights' but instead talks about social laws from ancient times.

Also the Marriage and divorce area has been totally vandalised.

It has gone from this: The right to marry or not has historically been more the right of men than of women. The rights that each partner in marriage enjoy has mostly been determined by other rights such as the right to safety and health. However, due to legal and religious dogma, the right to make decisions and take actions that influence both partners particularly outside of the domestic realm have been with the male partner. Together with the right to marry comes the right to divorce. This is a right available to either of the sexes. With the right to divorce, parental rights come into play. As such the rights of the male to retain custody of children and have access to his offspring, have been minimal. The reasoning for this has mainly been rooted in the ability of the female to provide adequate nurturing and support to offspring, especially during their early development. However, members of the fathers' rights movement state that the outcome of divorce is overly one-sided, divorce is initiated by mothers in more than two-thirds of cases – especially when children are involved, and that divorce provides advantages for women, such as preferred custody of the children and financial assistance from their fathers in the form of child support payments.[13]

To this: Legal and religious tradition dictated that rights to make decisions and take actions that influence both partners have lain with the male

I think someone biased against the men's rights movement has totally defaced the page, and before anyone scrolls down to the issues that face men (custody rights, circumcision etc) they will see this:

In pre-Christian Ireland, men maintained total legal rights over women, as though they were children. Additionally, only men were normally able to inherit unless a woman died without any male relatives. In that case she was able to leave her property to a surviving female relative, a legal right that was otherwise unheard of in 8th century Europe.

What a joke of an article it is now.

Edit: I just want to say, while the example given above about the ownership of Women in Celtic Ireland is indeed a concern, I feel it is a concern perhaps better suited to a women's rights page rather than a men's rights page.

79.97.224.17 (talk) 08:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will be putting a request for semi-protection, permanent if I can get it, on this to avoid such politically motivated editing in the future. The article has been reverted to its former state for now.Hermiod (talk) 11:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Hermiod I don't think any protection is really needed for the article at this time. It's rare the article has been vandalized or changed in any dramatic manners for quite sometime due to the team of volunteers working on it. I think we can avoid the protection status unless it becomes rampant, and it hasn't. :) SarahStierch (talk) 14:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Hermiod for the change, there is probably much room for improvement as an article but I felt it's tone was very anti-men's rights generally. Especially the history section 79.97.224.17 (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I question the usefulness of a full revert. such as

Very little has been done to formalize what men's rights are, or to protect these rights. With the increased focus on the rights of women and children, some believe that some of the rights of men have been devalued and overturned. An example of this is the limitations that have been placed on the parental rights of men over their offspring as a result of the rights awarded to women. without a source, or another example being bias; She must have "no recent workforce experience" but she can easily qualify for this well after the loss of her partner by going through a period of underemployment Also, I must ask is this a page for Men's Rights or Men's Rights Movement? Are we going to clarify what we are talking about, as surely "Men's Rights" doesn't have a structure to it. TickTock2 (talk) 14:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What was the relevance of the history section? By all means tidy up the article but what it was this morning was a total mess and alot of it had nothing to do with men's rights 79.97.224.17 (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to the Men's Rights Movement or Men's Rights? As I don't see the mess you are referring to. I think a full revert was unnecessary and introduced more NPOV issues, I'm going to revert your revision, I also object you calling it defacement as well. TickTock2 (talk) 16:30, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Im talking about Men's rights. And I'm not surprised you don't see the mess I was referring too, as it was reverted to how it should have been. And frankly, it was anything but neutral. Most if it gave the impression that there are no issues facing men.79.97.224.17 (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm double posting here and for that I apologise, but I get the impression TickTock2 that you are confused about what Men's Rights is. I think Men's rights is more about the issues in the legal and modern social systems that sideline men (in other words, men's rights are the concerns of men's rights activists), and is not an Encyclopedia of ALL the rights one has for being a man. Ancient Greek laws have nothing to do with men's rights whatsoever. Obviously the article has to be neutral, thus it is important it does not read like an advert for the men's rights movement. That is my take on it anyway. 79.97.224.17 (talk) 17:40, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You question the usefulness of a full revert? I question the usefulness of all the changes you've made over the last few months to utterly gut the article, changing it from an article about men's rights to a piece of drivel that has more information on the perceived injustices women have faced in the distant past than it does about men's rights issues today. All you did was sneak around and remove every bit of information that was in the article a few months ago, replacing it with drivel in order to deface it. A full revert would be far superior to keeping what's here. Maybe next time you shouldn't vandalize the page, instead taking some time to deal with any issues you find. But we both know you are politically motivated here, and that's why you destroyed the content of the article on men's rights.Jayhammers (talk) 21:19, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The right thing to do would be to revert to the version before the defacement, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Men%27s_rights&oldid=455508406 From there, editors could work on correcting any perceived violations of Wikipedia rules, rather than scrapping the whole thing and replacing it with rubbish.Jayhammers (talk) 21:21, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am reverting the reversion as soon as I post this. The version of the article that was reverted to is rife with WP:OR/WP:SYNTH problems, as well as a desperate lack of reliable sources. It also had some problems with just straight up misrepresentation of sources. If you think that the article is unbalanced as it currently stands, you can fix that by adding relevant content cited to reliable sources. It's unacceptable to revert to a version that violates so many policies, especially when the problems have been extensively discussed on this page. Kevin (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't just think the article is unbalanced, it actually is totally biased against Men's Rights. The entire history section has absolutely NOTHING to do with the subject of the page. The Divorce section has only one sentence: In 2003, a Malaysian court ruled that, under sharia law, a man has the right to divorce his wife via text messaging. What has this got to do with men's rights exactly? The Marriage section is this: In India, under the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956) a wife is entitled to be provided for the rest of her life by the husband regardless of them living together or not.[18] If the wife is widowed the father-in-law is required to support the widow, assuming she has no other way to support herself.

What is the purpose of quoting Indian law and nothing else? The first two thirds of the page has nothing to do with men's rights, and more to do with how men have it easy compared to women. We need to not only ADD relevant content with reliable sources, we also need to remove all of the useless trivia which has nothing to do with the subject. Whether or not the other version of this page was better, from a sources/neutrality perspective, this version is practically empty of relevant information on the subject.

That's the typical tactic used by devious Wikipedia editors. They'll remove all the work that was previously done on a page, then replace it with a small amount of drivel, and when you try to revert it back so at least the page has some meaningful content, they'll tell you that you need to rebuild it from scratch instead. A reasonable approach would have been for the editors to find sources for anything that was unsourced, and add the citations. Instead, they'd rather utterly gut the entire article and replace it with drivel, and then demand that WE go back and re-write the whole thing. Of course, if we do try to re-write it to be neutral, they will fight us the whole way. The end result is that they defaced the page when no one was paying attention, and it will remain this way.Jayhammers (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They did the same thing with the Domestic Violence page, where feminists refused to allow any citations that showed that women commit domestic violence at least as often as men. There is really no arguing against them, because no matter what you do or who you go to, they have already decided what they want the article to look like, and they will scramble for Wikipedia rules that appear to back them up. If it comes to a dispute through moderation, the feminist bias of Wikipedia editors will ensure that the misandric lies remain and that the page remains defaced. And when you talk about these things like I do, you'll actually get warned for it. It's pretty funny, actually. In all honestly, I'm surprised they waited this long to deface the page. It shouldn't be surprising, considering how they treated Thomas Ball. Also see the following for more information on what I've been through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jayhammers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayhammers Jayhammers (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have basically two options here. You can continue to act silly-ly and eventually end up getting blocked for violating WP:CIVIL or WP:NPA, or you can choose to add content to this article based on reliable sources and make the article better and more balanced. Kevin (talk) 05:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I have no fear of being blocked for violating policies here. It's irrelevant to me. Jayhammers (talk) 21:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Block me by all means, I'm by no means that interested in editing on wikipedia, but I would be interested to find out where I made a personal attack, and where I was uncivil. I have provided reasons for my concerns and I would like to state it here clearly that NONE of what I have complained about has been directed at the authors or editors. My anger is at the article itself, and the fact it was reverted to a tragic version for no real good reason. The article has nothing to do with the subject. And I absolutely believe that is because it is because of a handful of biased and politically motivated editors defacing the page. Keep on quoting policies at me though, for all these rules I am not breaking. 79.97.224.17 (talk) 22:13, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is actually disgusting to see this page defaced so obviously. 79.97.224.17 (talk) 20:23, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this page should be locked. As a response to a request for a citation, I provided one and change the wording to a direct quote from the article I sited. In response to this, a list of frivolous "citation needed" request were put up for each and every point made, despite the fact each point is part of a quote from the article provided. This can only be described as an attempt to trivialize the content (as minor as it was) by drowning it in citation needed flags, making it appear unsourced. This is the kind of ideological behaviour that caused you people to tear it down in the first place. And it certainly doesn't inspire confidence in rebuilding the page. Kratch (talk) 02:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then revert and explain in the reasons why the citation needed tags aren't needed. If I put them up in error, please, correct them, since as I saw it, I only saw a citation for the final claim rather than all of them. [User:TheAmazing0and1|TheAmazing0and1]] (talk) 03:47, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or I can point it out as an example of an Ideological attempt to trivialize the sources added by ignoring them and frivolously flagging content as citation needed, making the article look unsourced, causing the very issues we're seeing with removing content due to being "unsourced". My point is, this article should be locked, so the average ideologue can't vandalize it further, and so the rest of us can get a good handle on which official editors are themselves ideologically driven, rather than the neutral editors they require of others. Until that happens, this article will never be stable.Kratch (talk) 21:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or you could assume good faith, as is stated in the Wikipedia Principles.--TheAmazing0and1 (talk) 16:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at the previous edits made by a small number of users, it looks like they were made by people with a political axe to grind. Let me be clear, the purpose of this article is to describe the areas in which advocates of men's rights believe men do not recieve equal treatment to women in the same way feminism addresses areas that impact women. It is not there to either debunk nor support those claims. It is also not there for those opposed to men's rights to express their views. There are those opposed to the men's rights movement, Wikipedia is not the place for them to express that opposition nor is it to be used by those who support the movement as a soapbox. Hermiod (talk) 11:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me be clear: you are wrong. The purpose of this article is absolutely not to describe the areas in which men's rights activists believe that men do not receive equal treatment. Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all. It's perfectly fine for us, imo, to mention men's rights activists in the article about men's rights, but they should not and will not be the central focus of the article.Kevin (talk) 17:41, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From the link you provided: "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views" I would argue that this page is an article devoted to those views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.52.101.104 (talk) 18:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except, it's not. Someone could certainly create an article titled something like Men's rights activism which could be appropriately focused on the views of MRA's (that would still require reliable sourcing and balance) but "men's rights" is a very broad topic with extensive academic coverage that is in no way restricted to simply MRA's. Kevin (talk) 18:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except, as by looking at the original page creation, that was the very intent of this pages beginnings. This page was CREATED for the purpose of describing the areas in which advocates of men's rights believe men do not recieve equal treatment to women in the same way feminism addresses areas that impact women. As mentioned previously, you describe the definition of "men's rights" differently than the original author, and as such, this page should have been renamed to something you could agree on, but still maintained the original authors intent. Instead it was stripped apart and can't even maintain what little it has due to constant edits and frivolous citation demands. Unlike women's rights and feminism, which have different words for each item, "men's rights" applies to both the concept of civil and human rights as applied to men (your definition), as well as the movement to maintain and balance those rights (the original intent of the article). This is in the same manner as the word "probe", which is both a tool used to investigate as well as the action of using that tool. As mentioned by others, the action of stripping this pages original intent from the article, without replacing that intent in a new article (I know one editor is writing an article, but it's barely begun and this vandalism is months in the doing) is the significant cause of the current frustration. I also note, the original editor who added the NPOV flag noted most of the content was OK by him, he just had a concern with a few issues, including weasel wording (IE the use of "some people" etc) which also happens to be rampant in the feminism article, but without complaint. All this combined leads to believe that this is an ideological attempt to silence any attempt to even acknowledge men have civil rights concerns.Kratch (talk) 21:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The page as originally written, besides for drastic problems with undue/fringe issues, didn't follow any of the rest of our content policies, either. It was rife with original research, improper synthesis, and had very few acceptable sources. Even if we had renamed it, 80% of the content would have to have been removed. Kevin (talk) 00:33, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion to you would be to do the following, if you have the time to dedicate, and are willing. First try to talk things out and come to a consensus on the talk page. If that fails (which it probably will, since you're dealing with ideologues who do not believe men can be discriminated against) read up on dispute resolution here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution Follow the guidelines there. In the end, you will likely be forced to submit a request for mediation, which in all actuality will probably go against you, since most Wikipedia editors are against men's rights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation But hey, if you feel like it, go ahead and try.Jayhammers (talk) 21:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be acceptable to create a new page named "Mens Rights Movement" containing the content this page used to house? I think that would resolve the issue since the problem seems to be with the definition of the original page.96.52.101.104 (talk) 23:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's clear that since the claim is that "men's rights" is a different entity than the "men's rights movement", just as "women's rights" is a different entity than "feminism", that a separate "men's rights movement" page must be created to detail the "men's rights movement" (which is not the same as the "men's movement"). I have created such a page.Jayhammers (talk) 00:03, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A page about the men's rights movement is absolutely fine. It needs to use reliable sources, and needs to avoid original research (as well of needs to conform to the rest of our content policies.) The original content of this page did not conform to our content policies whatsoever, and cannot be used as a baseline for a page on the MRM. Many of the problems were detailed in earlier sections of this talk page. Given the extent of the problems with it, I would suggest that anyone who wants to create an article on the men's rights movement do so from scratch, not try to use the earlier version of this page as a base. (If you want to use the earlier version of this page as a base, draft it in your userspace, and do NOT move it to the main article space until the problems talked about earlier on this page are fixed.) Kevin (talk) 00:33, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the point you are missing, Kevin, is that the actions taken were not the responsible ones to take, given the infractions. Regardless of your definition of men's rights, the intent of the original article was with regards to the movement. What you effectively did, was walk in and delete the feminism page, simply to write one about the basic civil rights women have (Yes, I realize women's rights already exists, it's an analogy). This would have been unacceptable, yet it is precisely what was done here. Can you not see that, regardless of the infraction you believe the old article contained, the solution enacted was irresponsible and inappropriate? There were other ways of dealing with the previous infractions that would not have resulted in such a destructive end result, and would have left the articles original intent intact, as it should have been. Kratch (talk) 00:45, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If the feminism page had the same number/degree of problems that this one did, I would have done the same thing. If the only problem had been the intent of the article not matching the name, I would have just renamed it. I did not see any way to repair the severity of problems present in this article with any reasonable amount of effort, even with a rename. If you look at the edit history of this article - for the most part sections were removed piece by piece with an explanation of what was problematic about the section. If you see an easier way to repair some of the removed content to be in line with the policies that it previously violated (or even if you don't see an easier way but are willing to spend sixty or seventy hours rewriting it) you are more than welcome to do so - although a lot of it would probably be better off at another article dealing specifically with men's rights activism. Kevin (talk) 00:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The feminism page does have a number of issues, not least of which is the fact it is locked, it contains a number of significant unsourced claims (some of which I've listed on it's talk page), it is rife with weasel wording, and contains virtually no content of the criticism of feminism and feminists, which is a quickly growing discussion (in the real world), leaving the paged biased in feminism's favor. --Kratch (talk) 04:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You claim this article had problems, but you have not pointed them out, and you did not engage in discussion and reach a consensus before removing major sections of the article. Please specify exactly what Wikipedia violations were present and where, with corresponding difference reports of your changes. If you cannot, I propose a reversion to the original version of the article from a month ago before yours and others' changes which never had consensus. Jayhammers (talk) 01:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Jay If you go through the article history you will see that the majority of article contributors explain their reasons for removing content and often cite policy. If you review the talk page (above and archives) you will find more material as well. There really is no reason for Kevin or other contributors to have to rehash this because some folks came in a little late after gathering men's rights pals up at Reddit. SarahStierch (talk) 01:26, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the men's rights page discussed the men's rights movement for years before the last month in which these editors slid in and decided to change the very meaning of the topic, opposing the widely accepted meaning of "men's rights". There is no reason that the hard work over the years of many other editors should have to be rehashed just because some vandals came along in the last month and decided to throw it all away and replace it with unrelated material.Jayhammers (talk) 01:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, not only was there very little discussion in comparison to the vast number of changes that were made, but any discussion that did take place was between the vandals and... other vandals. People not familiar with the men's rights movement, although it is not popular, do not get to decide what the movement is about. It is the members of the movement who do. And in all actuality, the original page provided plenty of documentation for all claims made.Jayhammers (talk) 01:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As Sarah said, most of the issues are discussed in preceding sections of this talk page already. You have already been warned to stop making personal attacks - please stop labeling me a vandal, thanks. If you continue to breach WP:NPA you will be blocked. I don't really care one way or another if you do silly things and get yourself blocked, but if you want to actually improve this page you would be well advised to stop. Kevin (talk) 01:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, please limit discussion to the contents of the article, not the editors who have worked on it. Any further personal attacks will result in a 24 hour block. Kaldari (talk) 02:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, let's talk about the contents.

For instance, why does the Men's Rights page now have extensive discussion of historical facts, i.e. "in X country 2000 years ago, only men could vote."?

Why has the page removed the content about actual men's rights issues, such as the fact that men are given longer sentences than women for the same crime (in USA, Canada, England, etc.)?

Why has the page removed content about how domestic violence is equally suffered by men yet the public discourse attempts to promote the lie that only men are batterers?

Please answer these questions, thanks. Celdaz (talk) 21:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just back, was in transit the whole day. I did not write the new contents of this page for the most part, and have not looked at most of it in great detail. Historical detail is indubitably appropriate for this page - it's not just a summary of modern issues in America - but if you feel particular included historical details are inappropriate to include, feel free to bring up specific issues. "Actual men's rights issues" suggests to me that you may be too involved in this issue to edit this page from a WP:NPOV; 'actual men's rights issues' at least as far as we are concerned are those that are discussed explicitly in reliable sources. The previous content of this page was not adequately sourced, so it was removed. The entire domestic violence section was removed because in it's original form it contained improper WP:OR (especially WP:Synthesis.) If you have not already done so please read WP:NOR/WP:V/WP:RS as well as the earlier sections of this page (which talk a lot about why particular things were removed.) Kevin (talk) 04:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With all due respect, the number of Wikiproject Feminism members editing this page suggests much more of a NPOV problem than anything else. There are a considerable number of areas where feminism and men's rights are seen as being in conflict, which leads me to question the mentality and the reasons behind people with a specific interest in feminism editing this page, especially to remove text on areas such as domestic violence. There is far, far too much discussion of rights men do have in specific countries as opposed to rights they do not have and where rights they do have are not enforced in across the world in this article. The fact, for instance, that sharia law allows men to divorce their wives by text message has nothing to do with the greater problems men face with divorce. Hermiod (talk) 07:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hermiod, you must stop speculating on motives. If you have any specific edits that trouble you, then complain about them with the details. Broad insinuations such as these will get you nowhere but trouble, and don't help the encyclopedia one little bit. Slp1 (talk) 20:07, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The bellow is content to be added to the page. It addresses men's rights (this section, specifically equal protection under the law) and how those rights are being eroded. If you feel that is not relevant to a "men's rights" section, I would very much like to hear the reasoning for it. I have not added it myself, as I suspect my efforts would then be vandalized (I suspect it will get vandalized anyways, but I'm curious to see how the editors choose to react to this content, as well as the inevitable removal of it. More will come, particularly if I don't feel it will be a waste of time.Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The erosion of male rights:

Equal treatment and protection under the law:

Sentencing Disparities:

The United States Sentencing Guidelines prohibit the consideration of race, sex, and national origin in sentencing decisions (II.C.ii.(1) U.S.S.G. § 5H1.10. http://www.ussc.gov/Legal/Primers/Primer_Departure_and_Variance.pdf ). In his Study, David Mustard found unexplained race and gender disparities favoring whites and women. Women fared better than men in all specifications, and the gender disparity was usually much larger than the estimated racial disparities. (David B. Mustard, Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts, 44 J. L. & ECON. 285 (2001).) ( Source Page7 section 2.1 http://law.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=alea&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.ca%2Fsearch%3Fgcx%3Dc%26sourceid%3Dchrome%26ie%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dsentencing%2B%2Bdisparities%2Bby%2Bgender#search=%22sentencing%20disparities%20by%20gender%22 ). Gender effects are found in both drug and non-drug offenses and greatly exceed the effects of race and ethnic. Unlike race and ethnic discrimination, the evidence is more consistent that part of this gap is due to different treatment of offenders based on their gender. Sentence lengths for men are typically 25 to 30 percent longer for all types of cases. Additional analyses show that the effects are present every year (Source Section “C.2” page 127 http://www.ussc.gov/Research/Research_Projects/Miscellaneous/15_Year_Study/chap4.pdf ).Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Despite U.S.S.G. prohibiting gender in consideration for sentencing departures, California Lawmakers have implemented a policy to release female felons who are parents, convicted of non-violent, non-sexual and non-child related crimes, which they have deemed “primary caregivers” despite not having custody due to being in jail. "In crafting the bill, her (California Sen. Carol Liu) intent was to single out female inmates with children," Oakes said. But that could not be done because of a constitutional ban against gender-based discrimination. So the phrase "primary caregiver" was added to the bill. Men remain ineligible for this program, regardless of their primary caregiver status, as the program is not offered to male inmates at this time and with no plans for the foreseeable future (source http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=y2hzI1vWl1M#t=72s )(sources for all of it http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-home-20110913,0,6210913.story , http://www.newsytype.com/11335-california-mothers-in-jail/ , )Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A United Kingdom Women’s Justice Taskforce, has proposed Women should not be sent to prison and should instead serve community sentences. The Ministry of Justice welcomed the report and said it was carefully considering the recommendations. (Sources, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13666066 , http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/report-proposes-closing-womens-prisons-2293495.html , http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394739/Short-jail-terms-women-axed-prisons-closed-report-says.html ). The Taskforce consists of senior police officers, magistrates, economists and penal reformers and was appointed by the Prison Reform trust, which has no such taskforce for Male or Men’s Justice (source http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/ProjectsResearch/Women/WomensJusticeTaskforce ) and no such proposal has been made for male inmates.Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In India, Adultery is a criminal Offence, but only for men who have sexual relations with a married woman. (Section 497 of Indian Penal Code). Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

V.A.W.A. (Violence against women act) Funding for S.T.O.P. (Services, Training, Officers, Prosecutors) Was originally created for use by women’s programs, and has deemed applications ineligible for further review due the proposed programs focus on men, even citing “Ineligible Activities number one “Programs that focus on children and/or men”” (http://www.menshealthnetwork.org/library/VAWArejectDallas1202.pdf). In 1994, an addition was included stating that VAWA could not be used to discriminate against men ^{[citation needed]}. 2009 VAWA/STOP funding for Hawaii (and other states) states “Children’s services supported by STOP Program funds must show an inextricable link and be the direct result of providing services to an adult victim of violence against women.” and “Male victims may receive services under a STOP Program funded project as long as the agency’s primary focus is on efforts to stop violence against women.”. (Page 24, Section 2 Service Specifications, I. Introduction, G. Limitations on STOP Program Funding http://www.state.hi.us/spo2/health/rfp103f/attachments/rfp7411265074918.pdf ). This results in a condition where male and child victim programs must also aid female victims, but the reverse need not apply. Kratch (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in a bit of a hurry, so apologies if I have missed something in your posts, but as far as I can see the main problem is this material is mostly lacking reliable secondary sources that discuss these issues specifically in the context of men's rights. I sadly only have internet access for a few minutes currently as I am in transit, but I'll be back around later to look over this stuff again. But in the interim please read WP:RS, especially the section about synthesis. As an example of what I mean, looking at the section about the UK women's justice taskforce - there are a number of reliable sources in the content, but absolutely none of the reliable sources explicitly link the issue to men's rights. Although the sources are adequate to confirm that the facts as described exist (mostly,) to put a paragraph about that in a men's rights article without reliable sources specifically linking the issue to men's rights is a classic example of WP:SYNTH. Kevin (talk) 01:46, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And there is the ideological drive to silence opposing viewpoints by forcing your opposition to jump through hoops. We aren't allowed to post sources that represent men's rights movements, but we also need to present sources that talk about these issues as concerns about men's rights... without involving the men's rights movement because it is, in your view, a "fringe" movement. And you honestly expect to be taken seriously as an editor, particularly a "neutral" one? You are an intern. I would be interested in knowing who you report to, in order to get their opinion on your conduct with regards to this article.Kratch (talk) 02:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please focus on article content, not attacking editors. Any further threats will be considered harassment and result in a 24 hour block. Kaldari (talk) 02:30, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I provided article content. It was rejected "in a hurry", based on criteria that has yet to be required of the content that HAS been added already (that just happens to fit in with the feminist ideology), Criteria that has openly been rejected as "giving undue weight to a "fringe" movement" and criteria that has, subtly, already been provided, given the topic at hand was sentencing disparities based on gender, and was a continuation of the paragraphs that came before. Of course, this last point can be attributed to Kevin having "missed it" because he was "in a hurry", but given the heated debate of the ideological bent this article is feeling, combined with the fact I added the content in the discussion section, so that people would have time to critique it properly, his choice to reject it without due time spent is in bad form and reflects poorly on Wikipedia Foundation as a whole, given he is an employee. Your welcome to take this comment as a threat, to ban me for 24 hours. (and if you are Kevin's supervisor, I am very much interested in your opinion of his conduct regarding this article). --Kratch (talk) 04:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To deal with content issues first: You are perfectly able to provide sources written by MRM/MRA people, as long as they meet our normal guidelines for reliable sources. WP:Undue does mean that the entire article cannot represent solely MRA positions, but it does not completely rule out using MRA sources as long as they meet our normal guidelines for reliable sources. Taking an item by item look at the portion of your content that I was specifically looking at: the BBC article doesn't mention men, the Independent article doesn't mention men, the Daily Mail article doesn't mention men, and the PRT snippet doesn't mention men. Since no source you provided mentions men's rights/men, it's covered by WP:SYNTHESIS, which is one of our core content policies. These policies are not something I made up just because I don't like you - they're the codified best practices of our community which enjoy widespread consensus. To deal with non-content issues: for clarification, I am not a paid employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and none of my edits are in anything resembling in an official capacity. Please make your future posts about content issues, thanks. Making silly threats is not going to make it any more likely that the article returns to its previous state. Kevin (talk) 04:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alright Kevin, please explain some things here:

-What relevance does the fact that in Ancient Greece, men who served in the military were full citizens have to do with Men's Rights? As well as all the other historical facts.

-Why have actual men's rights issues, such as the fact that men get longer sentences and are less likely to be acquitted for the same crime as women, removed from the page?

-Why is the domestic violence section, which has hundreds of studies proving that domestic violence is equally committed by women (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm), removed from this page?

Those are just a few questions, but please answer them to start. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Celdaz (talk • contribs) 17:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC) Celdaz (talk) 17:47, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am requesting that the editor SarahStierch, discuss the edits she performed (is performing) and has concerns over (beyond minor grammar issues) related to the content I provided in this talk section for discussion prior to my posting into the article.--Kratch (talk) 23:09, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Kratch! Thanks for expanding the article. I just wanted to clean up some of the grammar, and of course we do need some citations and better clarity on some of the contributions you're adding. I don't have a lot of time right now to take a close look at all of your sources, I did notice that one was a letter from a men's rights advocate and that explains why the "cherry picking" template was placed on the top of the article talk page. I figure, since the situation about VAWA must be notable enough for you to include it it'll be easy for contributors, like us, to find a neutral non-related source (when we can, we prefer non-related sources, like news sources, etc, just keeps it neutral and scholarly :) ) to replace it with. If you visit the "View history" tab you'll be able to learn a bit more about my edits, I'm only working to improve it! :) Also, we actually DON'T capitalize every word in section headings. That's actually not proper in most scholarly writing unless one is referring to a specific title (i.e. book, artwork, person). I know it can be easy to want to capitalize things that should be stressed, but that's not how it is. Thank again for your contributions. SarahStierch (talk) 23:33, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you clarify, was the "letter from a men's rights activist" that you are referring to as "cherry picked", the rejection letter from Robert P Neff, Manager of Criminal Justice programs, regarding a father's rights group's STOP funding application (and followed by the relevant funding guidelines that also note the same ineligibility due to gender) that just happens to be stored on menshealthnetwork.org, a national non-profit organization?--Kratch (talk) 00:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I just removed the cherry picking tag. I apologize! I just re-read the letter, a mistake on my part! :) SarahStierch (talk) 00:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have concerns with the edit to the paragraph regarding California prisons releasing female felons who's opening sentence was removed, which is very much relevant to the topic of the section and paragraph. USSG prohibits gender from being a consideration in sentencing departure. The lawmakers have added "primary caregiver" as some means to avoid discrimination, yet, as the program still will not be eligible to men, even those who also fit under the primary caregiver criteria, simply because the program is being denied to MEN (IE, gender, which is a prohibited criteria), the policy remains in violation of USSG. It is my belief the original opening sentence is relevant and appropriate as it was.--Kratch (talk) 00:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the language so it reads more neutral. I think opening it with the USSG statement made it dramatic and urgent, and we cannot express that type of personality in our writing, due to the WP:NPOV policy, no matter how unfair or weird the law might be perceived, we have to allow the reader to make that judgement. It not only explains who the lawmakers are involved, but still stresses the use of "primary caregiver". I'm a little miffed, after comparing both versions, as to why the version I copy edited would appear non-appropriate or less relevant. It's just proper grammar, good layout of the paragraph and by laying out what the law is first, and then explaining the problems with it (and the conflicting law and the reason it's a problem) reads a little easier. But I could be wrong. I'm not here to edit war or get into it with anyone, I just want every article to read smoothly and understandably. :) If you feel that my edits weren't warranted, I'm comfortable with you rewriting the paragraph! SarahStierch (talk) 00:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have no desire to get in an edit war, hence all my recommendations and concerns are posted here, for others to correct. I have already been warned for my concerns over the bias of editors working this page. With that said, if you are truly looking to improve the article, I have listed a number of concerns in the "undue weight to women's issues" talk discussion above. I welcome you to provide feedback and edits in those regards.--Kratch (talk) 00:37, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Celdaz: It looks like the domestic violence section was removed because the first part of it didn't relate directly to Men's Rights (it was just argument about whether or not the abuse rates were comparable), while the other two paragraphs didn't have reliable sources to back them up. If you can locate any reliable sources where inequalities in domestic violence laws are discussed in relation to men's rights, I don't think anyone would object to you adding them to the article. Kaldari (talk) 01:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have twice now had to revert the sentence "so "Primary caregiver" was added, in response to changes of "it was changed to primary caregiver to allow it". "So "primary caregiver" was added." is a direct quote found in both articles, so claims that the changes were to better reflect the content of the sources is in error. --Kratch (talk) 03:01, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed an edit claim that "It is believed that the program will be offered to men at some point in the future", as this is not reflected in any of the provided sources. The closest they get is, it "could" be extended to men. --Kratch (talk) 03:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first source listed says "It is believed that similar actions will be taken with regard to the 150,000-plus male inmate population and the fathers among them." I will restore the content as reflected in the source unless you know of a source that states something contrary to this. Kaldari (talk) 03:39, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first source says "similar actions", not the same program as your current edits suggests. The third source is what I used to provide a direct quote. I would request you edit it accurately to reflect one of these two sources, as I will not revert your edit a second time and be accused of edit warring. --Kratch (talk) 04:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what they could be referring to by "similar actions" other than offering the program to men. If you read the quotation in the context of the article, it certainly seems to be saying that. Also the 3rd source states: "Prison officials Monday would not say how many male inmates they expected to qualify for home detention..." which would only make sense if they were planning to roll out the program to men as well. Kaldari (talk) 04:40, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kratch, I am concerned that it seems that you are still failing to understand the nature of Wikipedia. We are a neutral encyclopedia that reports what has been said in reliable sources; it's inappropriate for Wikipedia editors to engage in original research or to try to engage in synthesis by presenting multiple sources in a way that advances a conclusion that is not present in the original sources. I am going to remove a large portion of the content that you added today; I will add further sections to this talk page explaining why I am removing each section as I remove them. If you are unable to step back far enough from this issue to contribute to this article in a way that is compliant with our content policies, you should stop doing so. (If you are too close to this issue to be able to edit in a neutral policy-compliant fashion, you will probably eventually be blocked. I am not saying this as a threat; just a prediction based on my previous experience with other editors who were unable to step back adequately.) As a small example of what I mean, "The erosion of men's rights" is a grossly non-neutral title that represents your own point of view and does not represent the consensus view of reliable sources. (I'll be changing the section title shortly.) Kevin (talk) 04:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am removing this entire section. There are currently no reliable sources in this section that explicitly link the issue to men's rights. Additionally, it currently only cites primary sources. It's inappropriate to juxtapose two primary sources to form a conclusion - this is a job for academics, not us. We report what is said in reliable secondary sources, we don't synthesize primary sources to form our own conclusions. Kevin (talk) 04:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Domestic violence being seen as a thing men do to women is a pretty serious men's rights issue. The lack of support men receive, men not being taken seriously by authorities, men being arrested for defending themselves when their partner initiated the violence, violence in male same-sex relationships, increased use of weapons when the aggressor is female, verbal and emotional abuse and indeed the obvious bias in naming a law against domestic violence the "violence against women act". The fact that the domestic violence section in this article just links to the greater DV article is pretty poor. Hermiod (talk) 06:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree that domestic violence is a large part of the men's rights movement. Perhaps a brief section can be added into the article about the above concerns mentioned by Hermiod and then a direct link to that section in (if it is in) the domestic violence article.SarahStierch (talk) 13:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sentencing disparities

I am also removing this subsection. Currently, the section has four sources. The first source is a primary source which does not discuss the issue in the context of men's rights. With the disclaimer at the start it also may not be a RS - and the host it is currently on is unacceptable. It may be acceptable as a primary source if you find it on an official host, so that we can confirm the material presented in it, but there won't be many appropriate uses for a primary source that doesn't explicitly discuss the issue in the context of men's rights. The second source, although it certainly discusses sentencing disparities and looks reliable to me, does not discuss them as a concern about men's rights; it only observes that they exist. The third source specifies that it is a working paper which means that it is not peer reviewed and has an unknown level of editorial insight; it fails WP:RS. Also, although it seems to observe a gender sentencing disparity, it doesn't make any strong claims about why they are caused, and doesn't explicitly talk about it as a men's rights issue. (Even if it did it wouldn't matter, since it is not a WP:RS anyway.) The fourth source is not clear about where it is from, so it is not obvious that it has the editorial oversight required to be a WP:RS. The fourth source also doesn't talk about the issue as a men's rights issue explicitly. There is no RS in this section that explicitly talks about this as a mens rights issue, although several sources do note sentencing disparities. Talking about it as an issue of mens rights when no RS cited does so is an issue of WP:SYNTHESIS. Kevin (talk) 04:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• My god, you're not even trying to appear neutral anymore. Who made you the final arbiter of what's presented in this article anyway? The third source is absolutely fine. Especially considering what passes for RS on most feminist articles.--75.134.142.69 (talk) 05:55, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has certain policies about article content. Although some of them are flexible on an article-by-article basis, some of them are not flexible and most of them are not flexible without a strong reason to be flexible. Even though you don't understand them, I did not invent them, and y'all do not get to ignore them. Working papers normally fail WP:RS. In special circumstances with a particularly convincing argument certain working papers might be able to be viewed as RS, but that would require a convincing argument which no one has so far presented. Working papers are not generally subjected to significant editorial oversight and are not held to the same standard expected for published papers. Looking through the archives of RSN, it looks like they've agreed with me every time the issue has come up. (And, for the record: I don't really care what 'passes for RS on most feminist articles' - I've never edited feminism and don't really have an interest in doing so. If the sourcing in other articles is not up to our standard, that's an issue for the talk page of other articles.) Kevin (talk) 17:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• I accidentally removed the other part of this section too. I'll either have a rationale for removal up shortly or I will restore it shortly. Kevin (talk) 04:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking at it: the only RS currently in the section talking about the California plan was the la times article, and it did not talk about men's rights. So, it stays removed. The news clip on youtube may represent an available reliable source, but since it's a copyright violation and put up by an obviously partisan person, it's not an acceptable source as it is. If you find a place that has the news clip up that is not a copyright infringement posted by an MRA, we can potentially restore the section... although it really ought to have more than ten relevant seconds on a news clip to be talked about in a general article like this. Kevin (talk) 04:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • So, to summarize: In order to be considered reliable, a source must not only support the numbers, it must support them in the context of men's rights. However, if a source discusses men's rights and supports the numbers, it is considered biased and thusly not reliable... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.161.192.94 (talk) 14:35, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One has to be careful to avoid that appearance. Wikipedia's reliable sourcing rules are clear that a source need not be excluded if it espouses a particular viewpoint, but care must be taken when using it. In this case, the source appears to be a copyright violation, which means it cannot be used under Wikipedia's copyright rules. Assuming that is got over, a concern I suppose might be that it was out of context (reviewer writes "it is really shocking that anyone would pay good money to see this film", film poster says "reviewer says 'pay good money to see this film'"). A longer, not copyright breaching version, would help reassure everyone that nothing like this happened.

However, it is perfectly proper to add information to the article thus "men's groups condemned this move..." with a citation to the primary mens groups condemning it. The same statement from a secondary source would be better, which is where you are running into problems, as there don't seem to be that many of them (and if you want to argue that this represents some bias in the press, you would need a reliable source to put it in the article, but it does seem to be the case than this kind of issue is rarely represented in the media as an issue of disadvantage to men)Elen of the Roads (talk) 17:05, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)} There is no article whatsoever in which it would be acceptable to cite a youtube repost of a copyright news clip posted by someone expressing a hugely partisan opinion. If you find another article that tries to cite a copyright violation posted by a partisan source for information - and I don't care at all what the article is about - I'd be more than happy to support you removing it. Kevin (talk) 17:22, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with Elen here that the focus needs to be on secondary sources saying something like "men's rights activist work on issues such as X, Y and X". It is best to avoid men's rights groups and anti-men's rights groups as they are primary sources; there are lots of secondary sources about the men's rights movement and their views, and these should be the priority. It avoids both the problem of original research and helps with the WP:NPOV issue in that it is easier to see what are the key issues. I'd agree with Kevin that all the sources have to mention men's rights; otherwise we end up with a free for all of people trying to prove any random point with OR based on stats from this or that place. Good writing and research for a men's rights website, but not here. --Slp1 (talk) 20:17, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's own article on sentencing, gender and race has more than enough sources to quote from to show that sentencing disparity is a genuine phenomenon. While the section may need rewriting, the greater sentences given to men over women for broadly similar crimes and the continuing effort to reduce the female prison population through lenient sentencing must be discussed here. Hermiod (talk) 05:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can I suggest an addition to the Sentencing Disparity section which deals with with the concept of "personal responsibility" and how it is applied differently to men and women. In particular, judicial systems in most western countries apply the idea that men are totally responsible for their own actions, and very little mitigates this responsibility - whereas women are often excused of personal responsibly for their actions, usually on grounds that would never be available to men, such as having s difficult childhood or emotional problems. This relates to how mental health issues are applied differently to men and women in the courts - men generally need to be considered clinically insane to use mental health as a defence (and even then are usually imprisoned in an institution), whereas women can claim any number of mental or emotional afflictions (including depression) that are used to shift the blame for their actions.Zzz90210 (talk) 05:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can I also suggest mentioning in the Sentencing Disparity section that the disparity is greatest when the perpetrator/victim is either male/female or female/male. That is to say that women don't just generally get lighter sentences than men, but also get lighter sentences when their victims are men rather than women (especially in cases of sexual/physical violence).Zzz90210 (talk) 05:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is shorter life span really viewed as a men's rights issue as stated in the lead? I'm picturing a guy with a "We demand equal life spans!" sign. Surely this is mistaken. Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 04:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it's in reference to men being "put on the front lines" of violent situations - war, urban violence, etc, or the idea that men are more prone to being raised in environments that lead to destructive behavior. Here's an example of one reliable source I found, despite being from 1993, where a men's rights advocate discusses it. But, I'm not sure if it warrants being placed in the lead. SarahStierch (talk) 04:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To note, that is the only reliable source I've been able to find (thus far) on the subject short of logging into my subscription research accounts. SarahStierch (talk) 05:02, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not really a MR issue, but there are things connected to it that are. Fatal workplace accidents, death while serving in the armed forces, men being less willing to report medical problems to doctors (due to gender roles), men being more likely to be the victims of violent crime and so on. These all contribute to men having a lower average lifespan.Hermiod (talk) 05:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you think life span is enough of an issue to include in the lead or should we just concentrate on the more specific issues? Kaldari (talk) 06:16, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest concentrating on the larger issues that cause men's lower lifespan. Suicide is another, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 35 in Britain. In general, the whole 'women and children first' idea that leads to men being seen as disposable. Hermiod (talk) 06:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with hermiod, it is not a big enough issue to warrant a section. The more specific issues contribute more to the articleMeatsgains (talk) 21:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, instead we need to focus on access to healthcare, industrial safety, violent crime, suicide, armed forces service and other issues that cause men's lower lifespan. There is no evidence to suggest any biological reason why women live longer so societal factors must be taken in to account. Hermiod (talk) 06:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that it probably makes sense to move most of the content in this article to a page on the MRM or MRA's, and change this page to a disambiguation between human rights and MRM/MRA's (so that most people who enter 'men's rights' will be able to find whichever they are looking for.) For this reason, I'm not going to worry terribly much about WP:UNDUE etcetera on this page for now. I'm also going to stop removing poorly sourced content for now, to give some time for the new wave of SPA's to settle down (and hopefully source some of the unsourced stuff, and create some good content in the process.) Sometime - probably at some point next week - I will set up the move unless anyone raises major objections or anyone does it first, and will go through the content and weed out that which still fails our content policies. Our core content policies do - and will continue to - apply in this area. (If you want to work on content in the interim, I would suggest that you read WP:NPOV and WP:RS at a bare minimum, so that you don't waste your effort.) Kevin (talk) 17:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would object to that strongly. This article is being continuously improved, there is no need to move the article and once again I question the motives behind such a suggestion. I realise this is a controversial subject but the edits are as well-sourced as anything else on Wikipedia. It looks to me like you're holding it up to standards you wouldn't expect others to meet. Hermiod (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note that Men's rights movement is currently full-protected due to copyright violations that were happening there. If you guys come up with consensus content that you wish to create and/or move there (with attribution, for the love of pete!), please give me a heads-up on my talk page and I will unprotect the page so you can edit it. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 19:43, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A handful of the edits are well-sourced, although many are not. However, WP:UNDUE requires that "each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views." Unless you would like the final state of this article to talk about MRA positions only as much as is warranted by the prominence of MRA viewpoints, a move and disambiguation will be necessary. WP:UNDUE doesn't say represent viewpoints in proportion to how correct you think they are - it says represent viewpoints in proportion to how widely held they are in reliable sources. Kevin (talk) 19:50, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There as well sourced, especially when NPOV comes in to mind, as any article on Feminism I've seen on Wikipedia, and surely that's the benchmark here? Academic articles on Mens Rights are the absolute LAST place you should consider NPOV. The hostility towards men's issues coming from universities is the subject of a court case here in the UK. Any article on men's rights is going to have prominence placed on those who have an actual interest in the subject. Were Wikipedia's articles on random episodes of Star Trek written by people who aren't fans of the show? Are Wikipedia's entries on New York Yankees players written by people who aren't interested in baseball? Your issues with NPOV do not make up a sufficient reason to move the article.Hermiod (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The benchmark here is our codified content policies. Whatever sourcing issues you perceive in articles about feminism are irrelevant here. You would do well to remember that irrelevant arguments are not considered in forming WP:Consensus. You will also not have any luck arguing that academic articles are not acceptable sources here. We consider academic articles sources of the highest quality - changing that is way out of the scope of discussion here. WP:RS is not up for negotiation on an article by article basis, although you're welcome to start a broader discussion about problems you perceive in the policy at an appropriate noticeboard. Kevin (talk) 08:05, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You consider academic articles to be of the highest quality yet several reference articles used as sources have been removed. None of this is an argument for moving the page. Please do not do so without going through the applicable formal dispute procedure. Hermiod (talk) 08:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I think it is a good idea to move the article. That's what was decided with regard to the Fathers' rights movement, and I think it was correct. This way the focus can be on their claims and points, methods etc. But I would strongly urge, based on my experience with that other article, that editors agree that only high quality secondary sources be used. There are actually lots of these available: academic and scholarly articles, newspaper and magazine articles, which provide some distance and perspective on the rhethoric, and help to determine the significance of particular points for and against, and undue weight issues per NPOV. Using either men's rights or feminist websites as a major source for material is not a good idea. --Slp1 (talk) 20:03, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a good idea to merge this article with Men's movement (or Masculism) as there seems to be too much overlapping content already. I oppose moving the article to Men's rights movement when there is a men's movement article with basically the same arguments and sources.

Agree with Slp1: Academic and scholarly articles would be great but since they don't always say nice things about the men's movement I doubt that the SPAs will let you add and keep some of those. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 20:25, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that there is overlap, I think the men's movement page is and should be broader than the MRAs. There are various men's movements including "Men's liberation", the Mythopoetic, pro-feminist men etc. A few of good academic sources about this are [4][5][6]. You are likely correct that MRA editors aren't likely to be happy with some of the content from academic sources, but so be it. Wikipedia has policies and guidelines for a reason, and generally editors learn fairly quickly to follow them or they don't- ie leave or are blocked. One of those policies is that WP prefers high quality sources such as scholarly books and journal articles to activist websites. --Slp1 (talk) 20:48, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• A diambig page would make sense and would enable people to find Men's rights movement, father's rights, Men's liberation, human rights, rights of man etc quickly.
  Whether the best of the former content here should be merged to Men's rights movement or moved to Men's rights activism, or not, is, to my mind, a separate question - I'd personally consider a stub for Men's rights activism (which will grow as 3rd party scholarly reliable sources deal with the subject) the most logical option (since they call themselves Activists - this is what an article should be entitled per (WP:NAME)--Cailil ^talk 21:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really sure why this is so ambiguous. There are clear distinctions here. First, you have Men's Rights which is analogous to Women's rights, a list of areas where men receive negatively unequal treatment by the laws of the various nation states around the world. Second you have the movement to correct such inequalities, analogous to Feminism the most common name for that being Men's Rights Activism or masculism. However, as Feminism does not focus exclusively on women, neither does the equivalent men's movement. Third, you have the broader concept of masculinity, analogous to femininity, which should focus on more general topics such as male gender roles, media portrayals of men and so on. Finally, you have areas such as father's rights, 'intactivism' (the movement to end the circumcision of male children) and other such groups specifically focused on single issues that affect men. If anything, men's rights, masculinity and related subjects should be an entire project of their own as it is large enough a subject to justify it. Hermiod (talk) 10:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As there do not appear to be sufficient sources to support those articles, they, in fact, would not be justified and fall under WP:UNDUE. As you may be able to see from my user page, I have been working on a separate article for the men's rights movement, but many/most sources do not meet wikipedia's guidelines and thus can't be used. The topics you discuss, MRM, intactivism, and so on, are fringe movements and it seems that having their own separate pages would simply be advocacy, and not appropriate. You say MRM is "analogous" to feminism when that is move definitely not the case, as the respective sizes of those movements would make very clear. LikaTika (talk) 06:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What does the sentence about women initiating revenge behaviours have to do with men's rights? Kaldari (talk) 03:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Men have right to not be subjected to revenge behaviors or something like that I would suppose. extransit (talk) 05:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's part of a greater discussion of how women commit domestic violence in different ways to men, ways that are not recognised by the courts as abusive, thus infringing upon men's rights. Hermiod (talk) 05:55, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If that's the case, it should say that and preferably include citations explaining the connection. Otherwise, it is without context (and a violation of WP:SYNTH). As it is written now, the connection is not at all obvious and it just seems like a statistic thrown in to attack women. Kaldari (talk) 06:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I'll remove it for now while I look for sources to improve the section in general. As previously discussed, any discussion of men's rights must include a strong discussion of domestic violence. Hermiod (talk) 06:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to continue assuming good faith, but a lot of the discussion here seems to be generated by people who are trying to trivialise the subjects discussed in the article and eventually censor that discussion through obscurity. Discussion of moving the article to a place where it will be more difficult to find, removing genuine men's rights issues and replacing them with out of context discussion of men in ancient Greece, demanding citations to show that water is wet, holding the article up to higher standards than articles on women's rights have ever been expected to show and more.

There is nothing wrong with this article that a bit of honest work cannot fix. Most of the people contributing here have done so in good faith. It's frustrating, therefore, to see edits undone by a minority who have a political axe to grind on some of the issues mentioned. Hermiod (talk) 06:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. Its obvious that most of the recently interested users are acting in bad faith. Any one who thinks most of the above users are not biased is kidding themselves. I find it particularly amusing how everything in the marriage section was removed and replaced with a single snarky sentance about the right to divorce your wife by text message. Anyways, I think this will actually be a boon for those of us interested in an informative article, the article was in a less that perfect shape before, and well, I don't know about you, but I'm dedicating myself to clean up the mess left by the hacksaws. extransit (talk) 07:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hermiod - you have been told, multiple times, that is inappropriate to continue speculating on the motives of other editors. Stop doing so. To reiterate for you: continuing to make allegations about the motives of other editors after having been asked to stop is a violation of Wikipedia's community standards; continuing to violate Wikipedia's community standards, especially after being asked to stop, results in you being unable to edit Wikipedia. Kevin (talk) 07:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please discuss the topic at hand rather than threatening users with bans. "This page in a nutshell: Do not stop other editors from enjoying Wikipedia by making threats, repeated annoying and unwanted contacts, repeat personal attacks, intimidation, or posting personal information." Hermiod (talk) 08:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am just coming back to this article after not editing WP for a while and trying to wrap my mind around what's going on here... First of all, who appointed Kevin as the final arbiter of what is allowed and what isn't? Secondly, it seems that many of the editors currently working on this article are actually hostile to the idea of men's rights. The Lede is absolutely atrocious, puerile nonsense and vandalism:

"Men's rights are the entitlements and freedoms claimed by boys and men"

Are you kidding me? "Entitlements and freedoms claimed by boys and men?" It's clear from there on that we aren't going to be hearing about men's rights at all. Just some feminist rant about "male privilege" and patriarchy. I only glanced briefly at the rest of the article but if, according to Wikipedia policy, the article matched the lead I'd say it's better to nominate it for deletion or revert it entirely to some period before the feminist task force came in and made a parody of the topic.--Cybermud (talk) 16:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just hearing about some kind of uproar over this article, so I want to start out by saying I'm coming to this late. That being said, reading through the Talk page, Kevin seems to be one of the main voices keeping this discussion on track. Arbiter, no, but an exemplar of proper editing & article curation. Citing the lede-- as you mention-- it seems to me to be a mirror of the current Women's rights page. mordicai. (talk) 20:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I personally worked on the lede and edited it per discussion here that many seemed interested in having this article "look" more like the women's rights article. I would argue that instead of making it a "parody" it makes the article, it improves it, and makes it clear that what rights are. Is someone trying to argue that rights are not freedoms and entitlements? That's actually the definition of right. LikaTika (talk) 06:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this recently introduced section because of the significant problems with verifiability, original research and neutrality. I am detailing them below in the hope that it can help future editing of this and other sections, which may also be affected though I haven't checked them.

• Text added: "Paternity fraud is the act of woman purposefully naming a man as the father of a child when that woman is aware, or at least suspects, that he is not. This can be for personal gain (to obtain child support payments greater than that the real father would be able to provide) or to prevent the break-up of a relationship." This is not verifiable from the BMJ citation given (which is an excellent source)[7], which actually says. "Misattributed paternity is sometimes referred to as paternity fraud, a term that suggests that the mother (and possibly her lover) knew about the true paternity and deceived the man for financial gain". Note that the term "paternity fraud" is actually spelled out to be a non-neutral term, and the article actually uses the term "misattributed paternity" throughout. Nowhere in the article is the claim made that women do this to "prevent the break-up". Nowhere in the article is the claim that women do it to obtain larger support payments that the real father can provide.
• Text added: "Many jurisdictions compound this problem by preventing challenges to paternity after a certain amount of time has passed or holding the husband of a married mother to be the father of a child regardless of actual paternity" This claim is nowhere in the BMJ article. I'll add that it also misrepresents the BMJ article's conclusions which are not supportive of men's rights claims: "It is concluded that claims for reimbursement and compensation in cases of misattributed paternity produce the same distorted and thin view of what it means to be a father that paternity testing assumes, and underscores a trend that is not in the interests of children."
• Text added: "Statistics from the British Child Support Agency showed that in one in five of the support claims was made against a man who proved not to be the biological father, yet they had no record of any criminal prosecutions ever being brought" Source, the Daily Mail, which is a very poor source. It is currently being discussed on the WP:RSN whether the Daily Mail should be permitted on WP, as their fact checking is so poor. But even if we allow the source, the sentence added misrepresents it. Paternity fraud is a deliberate deception whereas the Daily Mail makes clear in its two opening sentences that the one in five statistics includes the mother naming the wrong man inadvertently (as they put it) because she is not sure who he is.[8]. An actual medical review found the average to be 3.7% of paternal discrepancy- for any reason, that is, not just deliberate paternity fraud.[9]
• Finally, a connection needs to be made, in the citations, with men's rights. This is ensure that the article stays focussed on men's rights as seen by secondary sources rather than what individual editors think is a major issue, and arguing back and forth with statistics they have found here and there.

I have only checked this section, but this is enough to indicate that editors adding content here need to tighten up their contributions. They need to use sources actually about men's rights, stick much more closely to the sources, not add unverifiable original research material, avoid cherry picking information to suit their POV, and use the highest quality sources available. --Slp1 (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Slp1 This is becoming a problem, I spent quite sometime yesterday looking for reliable secondary sources that are neutral, and had very little luck, and this was utilizing research subscription websites like Jstor and about 30 other collections. Most of the resources, written by scholarly/university groups and people generally end up questioning the men's rights movement and providing content about why they are wrong in their motives, when a few are written by those involved in the movement or appear to lean towards it. We're really lacking in neutral materials, to the point where it might just be better to create the "Men's rights movement" article that has been discussed, it might be easier just to examine the history and mindsets of men's rights supporters then try to break down these issues. It also seems that since some users are very attached and involved in the movement that this will continue to remain a problem.SarahStierch (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This highlights what I was talking about earlier. Without getting in to a discussion of men's rights themselves, while normally academic articles make for great references for Wikipedia, in this case their value is suspect at best and using them will generate further problems for those trying to keep this article clean. There are at least two current legal cases regarding the quality of gender studies education in the United States and the United Kingdom that I know of and all these have done is highlight the issue that such courses are a hostile environment to male students. If anything, the lack of quality education on men's rights issues is actually a men's rights issue itself. I think it's really important that this article not be allowed to end up looking like an article on Moon Hoax accusations where every point is only made so it can be debunked. As a second, more general point, I don't think it's unreasonable that people interested in men's rights contribute to this article. Wikipedia isn't worth bothering with if everything is written by laymen who know nothing about the subject. Hermiod (talk) 14:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be a couple of misconceptions here. First, we don't need neutral sources: we need high quality secondary sources. End of story. WP:NPOV says it means "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources". We don't make exceptions for topics because we personally find the "official" or "academic" line or whatever to be biased. So reliably published books etc from a men's rights perspective are welcome, as obviously are those from scholars and academics, even if they are critical. Where necessary, the views can be attributed, though attribution can be a POV weapon too.

Men's rights supporters and their opponents are all welcome to edit here as long as they do so from a neutral point of view "Editors, while naturally having their own points of view, should strive in good faith to provide complete information, and not to promote one particular point of view over another." (from NPOV. Per WP:ADVOCACY, if you're reason for editing is to promote (or oppose) men's rights, then you are in the wrong place. Unfortunately, several comments here have suggested that is the case. If you can't stand back enough to say, "well, yes, men's rights activists might have a point there", or "actually now, that I think of it, those men's rights websites I've been reading haven't been telling the whole story about this", then probably you shouldn't be editing. Make suggestions on the talkpage if you like, but let others do the editing. --Slp1 (talk) 15:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with you on that which is why I have not attempted to use well known men's rights blogs etc as sources. It is still my contention, however, that articles published by university gender studies departments should be treated with additional scepticism. Hermiod (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's good about the men's rights blogs, but as I've said before, policy doesn't support your attempt to marginalize academic sources on the matter. That's what we should be basing our articles on. --Slp1 (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not when those articles are as clearly biased as any men's rights blog, but that's the last I'll say on that subject.Hermiod (talk) 16:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bias is in the eye of the beholder, of course. In any case, WP doesn't in any way require reliable sources to be neutral (per WP:V, WP:IRS]], and this is repeated time and time again in posts at the WP:RSN. The issue with men's rights blogs is that is not that they are biased, but that they are blogs, which are poor quality sources. But reliably published books by men's rights activist would qualify. It's the article that needs to be neutral, based on the distribution of thought in the highest quality sources, not the sources themselves. --Slp1 (talk) 16:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the source material for what is a summary of the greater paternity fraud came from the main paternity fraud article. Paternity fraud is a men's rights issue because it is men being told by law to pay to support children that are not theirs. It's not an issue of women committing criminal acts against men, it's an issue of men being legally expected to pay for other people's children. If this isn't a men's rights issue then something like abortion can't be a women's rights issue. Hermiod (talk) 13:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a good idea to take material from one article to another without verifying it yourself. Unfortunately, WP is not a reliable source and people add all kinds of garbage to articles. You are responsible for whatever you add, and it is very problematic in terms of encyclopedia accuracy when editors add material that is misleadingly cited. The result becomes that everything you write has to be checked with a fine tooth comb, and this is a huge waste of editors' time. It's also a major problem in developing trust and cooperation among editors. These are the kinds of editing mistakes lots of people make at first, so don't worry. Just try to learn from it.

I'm not disputing that paternity fraud is an issue for men's rights activists. It is. There are lots of reliable sources that say so.[10][11]. That's where we need to start, and accurately reflect what the best of these say about men's rights issues regarding paternity fraud, rather than gathering information ourselves to make a case about it. --Slp1 (talk) 15:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can I suggest that rather than hacking out the segment, you could have just added that reference yourself? Why does every edit have to be turned in to a massive discussion? It's things like this that show why Water doesn't use the word wet once - because nobody could find a source to back up something everyone knows. Hermiod (talk) 15:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problems were much more significant than adding a reference to men's rights would have fixed. And edits don't have to turn into a discussion if sources are used accurately, there is no POV original research added, and if editors didn't try to deflect the responsibility onto others. --Slp1 (talk) 15:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with you here. There is no attempt to deflect any responsibility. All I've done is ask people to try to contribute positively instead of engaging in these constant discussions of Wikipedia policy that don't belong here. There is now more text in this discussion of the section than was in the section you removed. It would have been easier to just rewrite the section than to continue to engage in this pointless debate. Hermiod (talk) 15:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes contributing positively means removing stuff from our articles that doesn't comply with our policies, and pointing out what these problems with the editor who added them. Policies and guidelines are absolutely key to this article, and the discussions absolutely belong here, most especially when during several conversations on this page it seems that you (and others) are not clear on several points.--Slp1 (talk) 16:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are a considerable number of areas which need addition and/or improvement. Additionally, as discussed below, anything we do add would require reliable sources and this is not an attempt at a definitive list of subjects as that would constitute original research.

• Paternity fraud needs to be restored and the sources replaced.
• The section on conscription needs some discussion of how women are not required to register for selective service in the US and the effects on men who do not register.
• The section on circumcision needs expansion to further discuss this as a men's rights issue.
• The under-performance of boys at multiple levels of education is a massive men's rights issue.
  • Additionally, the lack of male representation amongst British primary school staff is a concern. (A significant proportion of British boys will never see a male teacher prior to age 11)
• Perhaps a small section on gay rights as a men's rights issue.
• Specific areas surrounding rape are very, very serious men's rights issues. Specifically, false accusation, lack of anonymity for those accused of rape, inability to face their accuser(s), US universities excluding male students based solely on accusations (the infamous Duke Lacross team incident springs to mind), female on male and male on male rape not being taken seriously and so on.
• So-called 'reverse' discrimination where lesser qualified women are promoted/hired over men while no effort is made to hire, for example, more male teachers.
• Business discrimination - examples being men facing higher car insurance premiums than women, 'girls nights' at nightclubs and so on.
• Sexual harassment.
• Homelessness amongst men.
• Suicide.
• Men's greater working hours, lower use of vacation time, longer work commutes etc.

Please feel free to add to the above list directly. Hermiod (talk) 17:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Without cites to reliable sources (WP:RS), that list is wholly your own outlook, original research (WP:NOR), which isn't allowed here, this being a tertiary source encyclopedia (and encyclopedias tending to be both handy and sometimes, as flawed as their sources). Gwen Gale (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know! I'm making suggestions for content which I'm hoping other people can help with. It's not a list of things I'm going to add! Hermiod (talk) 18:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BURDEN would seem to apply here. You have not yet added materiel, but you wish to add this materiel, and therefore the burden of finding sources lies with you. As you have no sources, I would caution strongly against violating original research; finding sources for preconceived ideas, rather than reading sources and then writing what they say, is generally less desirable both in practice and in outcome. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, I'm not disputing any of that and I totally agree with you. The above is a list of suggestions which is open to criticism, not an outline.Hermiod (talk) 18:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I commented here. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd add that you'd do much better to start from reliable sources when making the list. Find books and/or articles about men's rights and get the list of topics from them. That will help with determining weight issues as well as content. I'm sure you made the list in good faith, but it is a dangerous way original research way to start. --Slp1 (talk) 19:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

At this point I'm just going to say forget it. If an attempt to suggest ways in which this article can be approved cannot be had without yet more policy discussion then it isn't worth the effort.Hermiod (talk) 19:14, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's now a thread at WP:ANI about the issues involved here. Kevin (talk) 17:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've upped protection on the article to full for one week. Hopefully this will give editors time to talk about the sources (WP:Reliable sources) and how to deal with them, here on the talk page. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for unprotection added. Hermiod (talk) 18:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Men's rights → Men's rights movement – The concept of "men's rights" is not readily distinguishable from the well documented Men's rights movement. The appropriate topic, and location of this article is a discussion of the movement, not a study of the claimed rights. Hipocrite (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to object, as Men's rights and Men's Rights (the movement) are tied together. I would imagine that Women's Rights and Women's Rights Movement (which redirects to Women's Rights) are in the same boat, I see no reason why the same solution won't apply here. TickTock2 (talk) 19:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC) This template must be substituted.[reply]

There is a great deal of literature on the movement. There is very little literature on the actual rights in question outside of the movement, which is substantially different than Women's rights, which have a body of literature and study outside of that of Feminism. Hipocrite (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with that idea as well, as there are MANY sources about Men's Rights oustide of the movement in question, just because it is not under one label such as feminism does not mean that it is not there. I support my argument with thing such as conscription (which I sourced in the article), or Ancient Spartan males requiring to be in state custody after the age of 6, or we can go into more details such as rituals that are required of men (in some cultures) to become men. I have discussed this at length in this article and outside. TickTock2 (talk) 19:56, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I admit I'm new to Wikipedia, but by my previous edits, I hope you see that I am open to intelligent discussion, so What does it take to stop a move, and what would it take to change your mind that a move is not necessary? TickTock2 (talk) 20:16, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly object to any such move. I've already described the differences between men's rights and the men's rights movement above. There should be separate articles for each. Hermiod (talk) 19:17, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article is soley focused around the movement (well, the parts that aren't just unsourced arguing, or totally off-topic that is). What can be written about the rights themselves, exactly? Hipocrite (talk) 19:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's completely incorrect. 'Men's rights' should and does discuss areas in which men have and are denied specific rights based on their gender. There is plenty in the article already to support this. This is analogous to women's rights. The movement to correct those imbalances is separate, as [[feminism] is separate to women's rights. I do not know why this is such a hard concept for others to grasp. Hermiod (talk) 19:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it should not. Articles are not designed to be advocacy pieces - this appears to be your problem here - you would like this article to reflect the WP:TRUTH that "men have and are denied specific rights based on their gender." Reliable sources do not address this - if they do, please cite them here and we can build an article around them. This article is currently a morass of WP:SYNTH coupled with a few lines about a movement. Hipocrite (talk) 19:31, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BURDEN. It's up to you to prove your case, not for me to defend mine. You are seeking this move, it is up to you to prove that there is a good reason for it. So far, all you have done is state your opinion without sources. Hermiod (talk) 19:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are misusing WP:BURDEN, which deals with adding or restoring unsourced, challenged content. I am asking to move the article, not add information - in fact, if the article was unlocked, I'd remove a lot of information which is either irrelevant or unsourced. I contend that your objection is not germane, as your definition for "Men's rights," appears to be "that which addresses the grievances of the Men's rights movement." Until such a time as you can demonstrate that this article adresses something unique from "the grievances of the Men's rights movement," your objection to the move can be safely ignored. Hipocrite (talk) 19:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are asking to make an edit which others have objected to. You are questioning my motives in objecting to this which is a policy violation of its own. You have no good reason to move this article and are doing so for arbitrary purposes. You are required to give a good reason for moving a page which is something you have not done. You have two separate objections, both of which you have attempted to belittle. My objections stands and I will not accept it being ignored. Hermiod (talk) 19:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

May I remind you of WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:OWN. I agree with the move personally based on Hipocrite's comments. Alexandria (talk) 20:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, no you may not. I'm tired of the bullying and harassment this issue has generated. Hermiod (talk) 20:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reminding editors of applicable policies is helpful advice, not bullying - and playing the victim does not release you from your obligation to follow the policies. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the behaviour exhibited here by you and multiple others is bullying. You do not agree with the points raised in the article so you try to censor it by hiding it and holding it up to higher standards than any other article on Wikipedia. No victim card is being played, I'm calling you out on your behaviour. It is not your place or the place of anyone here to decide what is and is not a 'mainstream' viewpoint. It's that kind of behaviour that caused this problem to begin with and you are continuing to exacerbate the problem. Ironically, you are demonstrating the exact kind of behaviour that causes Wikipedia to have so few female contributors. You don't create an atmosphere where people can contribute positively. Hermiod (talk) 20:53, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Ironically, I think if Wikipedia actually had a normal gender balance, the Men's Rights activists would be demanding that the article be moved (rather than the opposite), and they would be demanding that all content be sourced to material related directly to men's rights (rather than the opposite). If we turned this article into a reflection of what the mainstream world actually thinks about Men's Rights, it would basically say "Men have all the rights," as this is the general perception of mainstream society. However, since Wikipedia is dominated by men and has a strong Men's Rights presence, this article is instead a one-sided argument about how men are not treated equally and are getting the shaft. If you are a Men's Rights proponent you'll be doing yourself a favor in the long run if you go with Kevin's suggestions and stick to strict sourcing rather than allowing original research and synthesis to dominate the article. You'll also be doing yourself a favor by moving the article to Men's rights movement. One day women may actually show up on Wikipedia and edit this article to reflect the mainstream view of the state of men's rights. Since there are about 100 times more sources for the feminist view than the masculinist view, you might have a hard time keeping your one-sided argment. Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which will come first, more women editing Wikipedia or men being represented at all in the university departments creating the sources you wish users to cite? The discussion around gender has been 100% female dominated for decades. University gender studies departments are man free zones. If you are asking for Wikipedia to be similarly biased then you appear to be getting your way already. Hermiod (talk) 20:35, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

{{fact}} Got something to back those claims up about the university departments? Alexandria (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's called the real world outside of the Internet. Sorry, but Wikipedia does not have an appropriate way to cite such a source. That's why the article on water isn't allows to use the word 'wet'. Hermiod (talk) 20:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you arguing anecdata? Frankly, that has no place here. LikaTika (talk) 06:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not arguing for anything. It's merely an observation that highlights a flaw in the way Wikipedia works, in my view. It is not a request for change, it is not arguing with policy or anything like that.Hermiod (talk) 06:40, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the face of such a statement as "University gender studies departments are man free zones", a request for supporting reference is not unreasonable, and the assertion that a thing is so true as to require no supporting evidence is I think this article's core problem in a nutshell. Ford MF (talk) 03:51, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that "wikipedia does not have an appropriate way to cite such a source" means "Hasty generalization + Confirmation bias. I honestly chucked at that, there are plenty of men in both gender and women's studies. The difference is that I can source it. As a matter of fact I can source it to 30 years ago, which means that the many men in said fields had plenty of time to influence the subject. N^oformation ^Talk 04:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it means real world information which Wikipedia does not support. Hermiod (talk) 05:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not agree with the move, they should be two seperate articles. However Alexandria makes a good point, it is rather biased (and im male) and could use some sources and sections on the other side of mens rights. ie we have them all.Meatsgains (talk) 20:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong support. I'm reading through this article for the first time and I'm concerned that the scope and focus of the article is just too vague to be viable on wikipedia. There's stuff here about ancient greece and Pakistan and divorce in the US and its very unclear what the common theme is beyond "Disparities in the treatment of men and women by law and institutions across history and cultures". Are there sources which connect, say, church policies to only ordain men with the percentage of men who file for divorce in the US with the military obligations of men in Ancient Greece under the framework of men's rights? If not, than I think throwing all that stuff into the same "men's rights" article is original research. My recommendation here would be focus on the platform of this men's rights movement (whatever it is) and to provide as much context for each specific issue as possible. If there isn't a source connecting an issue to the topic of "men's rights" than get it out of the article. (comment copied from ANI discussion) GabrielF (talk) 20:40, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry can you clarify what your saying exactly? Men's rights and Men's Rights Movement are not the same thing. We have Men's rights which deals with things like ancient Greece, and we have the current (modern) movement. It's very similar to what you see in Women's rights and Women's Rights Movement. Notice how those two pages redirect to each other? TickTock2 (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, now I think I understand what's going on here. This article is trying to mimic the structure of women's rights except from a male perspective. Note the similarities in the intro paragraphs and the topics discussed. Got it. The problem is that these are two completely different animals. Talking about the relative status of men and women in history provides needed context for a discussion of why the women's rights movement believed what it did. Also, there's a history of change in the rights of women. There's a perfectly logical flow from talking about how women in ancient greece (which was responsible for much of Western culture) had few civic and political rights to talking about the middle ages, to the enlightenment and the suffragettes and the modern era. These developments were all related. What is the relation between, say, military obligations for men in ancient greece and prison rape in contemporary society? The structure that works for the women's rights article utterly fails for the men's rights article. The only way that I think it would be permissible to link, say, ancient greece and the men's rights movement in the same article would be if you had a source that said something to the effect of "the men's rights movement is driven by a feeling that men have lost the traditional role in society that they enjoyed since ancient times" or something to that effect which makes the link explicit. Otherwise including stuff in this article "because the women's rights article does it" is just POV nonsense. GabrielF (talk) 21:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong support I agree that it's rather vague/fringey in regards to content, sources and ideas (nothing personal, folks!), and that it might be more beneficial to create a page that can examine the belief system and culture of men's rights as a movement, and per GabrielF. SarahStierch (talk) 20:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Per the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view's "Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views," wouldn't an MRA page allow a uh...how do I put this...a page where that tiny minority's views could be expressed? An article...devoted to those views? mordicai. (talk) 20:45, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you expand on this a little bit? what do you believe is a tiny minority? The advocates, the rights, or what? How do you separate out the current rights from the movement? TickTock2 (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The mainstream view of the world-wide state of men's rights can pretty much be found already in the article patriarchy. This article, however, reflects the views of (American) men's rights activists, not the rest of the world. Thus it is not in line with WP:NPOV. If it is moved, that won't be an issue. Kaldari (talk) 21:12, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support for the reasons listed by mordeicai and kaldari - and because the fringe movement MRM does not define what men's rights are. Giving their arguments weight and space here does not seem to comply with policies. LikaTika (talk) 06:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Object The page is similiar to Women's Rights and Women's Rights Movement. I've heard no compelling reason as to why they should be separated and we should not use the same template. TickTock2 (talk) 20:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC) This template must be substituted.User TickTock2 has also objected above. Hipocrite (talk) 21:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The difference is that the editors of this article don't seem to have any interest in making it NPOV. They want to focus on the talking points of the Men's rights movement (which is a minority POV). Kaldari (talk) 21:23, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. Judging by the discussions above (and the current article lead which includes things like "lack of social support services for men" and "decline of college enrollment"), I think a lot of people really want this article to be about the Men's rights movement. If it isn't moved, we should work towards making it reflect the mainstream world-wide view of men's rights, not the one-sided view of men's rights advocates (as it has since its creation in 2005). Kaldari (talk) 21:08, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strong object. Attempt to move the page is politically motivated and not consistent with Wikipedia's neutrality policies. Hermiod (talk) 21:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)User Hermiod has also objected above. Hipocrite (talk) 21:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's assume good faith and not make assumptions about other people's motives. GabrielF (talk) 21:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried but there's only so much trust I can be asked to give, given the mockery of the subject from the same users posting here I've seen on the Admins notice board. I am quite willing to accept that most people edit in good faith but this has been an entirely one sided view so far. Hermiod (talk) 21:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's be crystal clear here - the attempt to move the page is by me. I have not posted on the admins notice board regarding this subject. How could posts to the admin notice board have anything to do with my motives? Be extremely clear. Hipocrite (talk) 21:29, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been clear. The suggestion to move the page was made earlier today, not by you. You are only the one who did the paperwork. It has since been supported by users who clearly have political objections to the subject itself and therefore I cannot assume good faith from anyone who votes to move the page. Additionally, you specifically stated earlier that my vote should be ignored. That is disrespectful. Hermiod (talk) 21:34, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The entire reason the move is being suggested is that the current article isn't NPOV. It currently reflects the views of Men's rights activists, not the mainstream views of the world. If the article is moved, people will be able to focus on the men's rights POV as most of the editors of this article seem to prefer. Why is this not a win-win suggestion? Kaldari (talk) 21:18, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Clearly there are conceptually different things which need disentangling. Put it this way: I am a man, I'm not too keen on the Men's Rights movement but, all the same, I do feel that I should have rights. Also agree with GabrielF that the article is actually in a worse state than the RfC question is letting on and seems almost randomly generated in parts. --FormerIP (talk) 21:15, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Objectively [*ahem*] ... objectively there exists a topic that is aptly called men's rights. It is distinct from another topic: a movement to promote men's rights. The topic of the article is pretty clearly men's rights. If particular movements are mentioned, that is only subsidiary. The article's clear focus is on the rights themselves, and their acceptance or denial. We do not conflate Slavery and Abolition of slavery (which redirects to Abolitionism, as a movement), or Women's rights and such articles as Feminism. We not marginalise Women's rights by reducing its advertised scope so that it seems a mere movement or pressure group. Rather, Women's rights movement redirects to Women's rights; in parallel (since the topics and detailed contents are indeed parallel, as inspection shows), Men's rights movement redirects to Men's rights. If we change one, we ought to change its mirror image. I am assuming that editors here are against sex discrimination, and in favour of equal treatment regardless of political salience, or of success in achieving the rights treated in these articles. Objectivity. Noetica^Tea? 21:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't agree that we need to treat the articles men's rights and women's rights accordingly. These topics are very distinct, with distinct histories and traditions of scholarship and WP:NOR demands that we treat them as such. We don't have much of a concept of "precedent" on wikipedia - just because there's a consensus around one article doesn't mean that that consensus needs to apply to another article. Having said that, my goal for this article is to see it brought into focus. Hipocrite seems to favor removing a lot of the historical material and focusing on the platform of the men's rights movement. Another approach would be to look at the rights and privileges historically offered to men with some discussion of how people believe those rights should be expanded. That seems to be what you're going for. I think that's an okay approach although more difficult to implement because its a broader topic. Ultimately, if the consensus is to focus the article in that direction than certain sections would still have to go - prison rape for instance, or cancer funding, since they really have nothing to do with men's "rights". GabrielF (talk) 21:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really going to have to check and see whether rape is mentioned in any feminism articles if you think the treatment of male prisoners isn't a men's rights issue.Hermiod (talk) 21:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue that it doesn't matter what the feminism articles say about rape because we don't run things on a "but that article got to include it" basis. GabrielF (talk) 21:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A curious response, GabrielF. We don't absolutely need to treat the two articles the same. We could take a political stand and treat them differently, I agree. We could (though I have proposed that we avoid this) act in favour of sex discrimination, and against equal treatment regardless of political salience, or of success in achieving the rights treated in these articles. Why would we want to do that, though? Who benefits? Is the landscape any clearer, then? Do you think, after long and dispassionate reflection, that women have rights to equal treatment (and an article should be devoted to those), but men do not? Whatever we need to do with article titles, and whatever political pressure might achieve, no one has given a reason here to go against the policies and guidelines of the Project. There are two parallel topics, treated in parallel articles, with parallel treatment in external sources – differing in volume of publications, but that should not be a consideration. Please leave at the door any political inclinations you may have, next time. Noetica^Tea? 22:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But they don't have parallel treatment in external sources, that's the point. Whereas there is a large literature on women's rights (separate from the movement), it simply isn't there on the men's side. Perhaps it will be in the future, and then decisions can change. --Slp1 (talk) 22:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure they do. Women's rights is very much discussed within the topic of the Women's rights movement. Women's rights is an idea of the womens rights movement. Men's rights is an idea from the Men's Rights Movement. extransit (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that having an article called women's rights but not an article called men's rights would imply that wikipedia is saying that women's rights are more important. I'm not aware of any policy that would support your argument - I think its expanding NPOV way beyond its intention. One problem with your approach is that it leads to situations where a user can insist that every aspect of one article match another article. Hermiod, for instance, says that the question of whether the rape of male prisoners should be included in this article should be decided on whether rape is included in articles on feminism. That's crazy. The issue should be decided based on whether sources treat prison rape as a "men's rights" issue (and searching a number of academic sources, I couldn't find any that do, on the other hand, I found tons of sources that treat rape as a women's rights issue in the sense that it is a violation of reproductive and other rights. Additionally, when I was a teacher and had to discipline a student, the student would sometimes say "but so-and-so did this" and I would have to say that I would deal with the other student separately, but that my concern at the moment was the student in front of me. If I let a student drag in another student's behavior it would derail the entire process. I think the same concern is relevant here - if we start including women's rights articles into the conversation than it adds to the contentiousness and makes it very, very difficult to deal with the primary concern here, which is improving THIS article. GabrielF (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support, for one main reason. Sources. Having looked about, I don't see reliable sources that distinguish men's rights per se from the claims made by MRA. For example, the chapter on "Men's Rights" in the "International encyclopedia of men and masculinities" is all about the men's rights movement, its history, philosophy etc. The Encyclopedia of human ecology [12] also has a nice section on the MR movement, using just the sort of dispassionate language about, for example, the domestic violence issue that I hope could be emulated here. The "Men and masculinities: a social, cultural, and historical encyclopedia" also tackles the topic of Men's Rights through the movement.[13]. In addition, I don't see the relevance of all the past history stuff (either here, or to be honest on the women's rights page).As far as the literature is concerned, there isn't the symmetry that Ticktock2 argues for: there is an extensive literature on women's rights issues per se, likely because globally over history, women did have a lot more catching up to do, with regard to voting, property, job opportunities etc. For men's rights the literature is all couched around the MRM. However, I think it also needs to be made clear that even if the page gets moved, it doesn't mean that the policies go out the window, and MRA talking points are the main feature. It still has to follow the rules, and accept the good and the bad according to the sources. --Slp1 (talk) 21:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Coda- my point about men's and women's rights articles not being symmetrical has been made much more eloquently and clearly by GabrielF while I was typing this up. I agree wholeheartedly. --Slp1 (talk) 22:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support No support that this topic differs from "Men's rights movement." Furthermore, there's not a lot salvageable in this article. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 22:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose the rights specific to men as distinct from human rights is a cogent topic, much like Women's rights. extransit (talk) 22:22, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Rights specific to men" has the potential to be different topic from MRM, but do you have any reliable sources to show that it is, practically speaking? Also, frankly, if that's your definition, the article is going to end up being practically the opposite of what a men's right activist would want, as through history and still across the world, the bulk of "rights specific to men" are at the expense of women. --Slp1 (talk) 22:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not understand your talking point about how this article will be the opposite of what men's rights advocates want or why you think that is relevant to this merger discussion. If anything it shows how political your contributions here are. extransit (talk) 22:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please refrain from attributing motives. It is unnecessary and unhelpful. Do you have any sources to make to show that men's rights are a distinct topic from men's rights activism, or not? --Slp1 (talk) 22:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not to speak for Extransit, but one would be a historical article, and the other is about the MR movement itself. I think it's totally possible to have an article outlining the various rights (or lack of) through history in different areas of the world. But that doesn't seem to be what this page is....yet. Arkon (talk) 23:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Yes, everything's possible. But it all comes down to sources. There's plenty of sources about men's rights in the context of men's rights activism. Have you got any sources (book chapters, encyclopedia, newspaper or journal articles that talk about men's rights through the ages as a topic? If not, we're inventing a subject and we are bound to be engaging in original research to find sources. --Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've typed up a few responses, but they keep growing in length...My opinion on what this article should be, is a historical recounting of Men's rights through history in differing areas. This would not require these facts to be in a specific context, just that they be sourced (the sourcing should obviously be discussed elsewhere). Arkon (talk) 23:51, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Move I just don't see how this can be a standalone article from the MRA one. So far it's just a collection of random bits of information. If we want to detail men's rights in ancient greece, create an article called men's rights in ancient greece etc. Arkon (talk) 22:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That reasoning makes no sense given that we have a Women's rights article. Should we disavow the article on women's rights because we could have an article about women's rights in Ancient Greece? extransit (talk) 22:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think comparing this article to the women's rights article only highlights how terrible this one is. If you have some suggestions on bringing this article up to those standards, you could possibly sway me. As it stands, its a jumbled mess of cherrypicked factoids. Arkon (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused about how you think moving an article is a solution to its quality problems? Editing, not a move is the solution to quality problems, just as how Wikipedia:Articles for deletion is not for quality problems. extransit (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is the article we have, and it's terrible. Again, if you have suggestions on how to flesh it out, I am all ears and willing to change my opinion. For now, my opinion is that the best option would be to redirect/merge it into the MRA article. Arkon (talk) 22:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I had just started working on it; I had just allready added six journal citations and three books, when it got protected quite ridiculously (there had been a single revert in the last two days). extransit (talk) 22:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree that the protection is over the top. On that note, changing my Support to Wait until protection expires to allow editors to improve the article. Arkon (talk) 22:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Wouldn't it be possible to snatch up every reference from the women's rights page in order to do a mirror article? (As a start anyway) Arkon (talk) 22:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Irrelevant This article is currently about neither of the suggested titles, it's a poorly constructed mishmash of perceived inequalities with in many cases poor or cherry-picked sourcing together with large amounts of original research and synthesis. Most of the parts that would be part of such an article already have their own articles. Far better not to bother with a move, but to decide how best to fix this article first (which will probably involve removing a large amount of its content). Black Kite (t) (c) 23:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with all your comments about the article content, and that it basically needs to be rewritten. But I do think moving would actually help with editing because it would help develop its form and content more clearly. It's what was decided when years ago "Fathers' rights" was moved to Fathers' rights movement: because that was what the reliable sources actually were about. For all that article's deficiencies (and there are plenty) it is better than this one in myriad ways.Slp1 (talk) 23:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Gabriel and Slp said it better than I can. It is probably better to focus the title on the Men's Rights Movement itself and re-build from there, rather than trying to stitch together a historical survey on male freedom from a variety of sources. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:37, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Articles appears to be in large part synthesis and original research without much of a corpus of sources to reference in support, outside the men's rights movement itself. Ford MF (talk) 04:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue for moving of the page contents of a couple months ago to a men's rights movement page. It is my belief that the page as it was (couple months back), was based on an interpretation of Men’s Rights (Civil Movement), but was held to NPOV standards based on the definition Men’s rights (Civil Liberties). A reading of the article as it was a couple months ago, would see the intention was an article of the Men’s Rights (Civil Movement), and a simple renaming would likely have resulted in many of the NPOV complaints becoming minor or non-existence, and not delete-worthy. Particularly if the page was then held to the same standards for meeting policy that the Feminism article are held to (or even a moderately higher standard, as I don't see the Feminism being held to a very high standard.).--Kratch (talk) 01:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• support this article is currently a mess of Original research and synth. At the poposed title at least it will have a topic that it is possible to write an article about without basing it on Synth and OR.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong support. The article's gravitational center is about the recent movement to reclaim for men the rights some of them perceive they have lost to women (as if it is a zero sum game.) There is no topic called simply "men's rights". Binksternet (talk) 02:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support This article, as it stands, seems to be trying to be something like Men's rights as opposed to women's rights. If we really wanted an article on "men's rights" it would have to be about the development of men's rights and responsibilities in society. It would have to include things like land tenure, feudalism, the right to a fair trial, Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the French Revolution, The Rights of Man ..... The subject is simply too vast. The current content is pitiable compared to the subject. On the other hand a documentation of the current "men's rights movement", their concerns and claims (and whining) would be quite manageable, and encyclopedic. Dingo1729 (talk) 03:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose with no objection to the creation of a separate article centered on modern men's rights movements. The women's rights article does a good job of providing an overview of the history of the concept while addressing its modern themes and various interpretations. I support maintaining a similar format for this article. If one of the previous versions of this page is reincarnated as a modern men's rights movement article, I hope editors address the polemical tone and the overly Western scope while recognizing that the movement is very broad (compare the Promise Keepers to the mythopoetic men's movement). Any move should also consider how the new destination would differentiate itself from the masculism article. Gobonobo ^{T C} 04:10, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose – the article does not seem to be about a movement. It should remain named for its topic. Dicklyon (talk) 04:15, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong Object This page deals with a large number of clear, specific, identifiable issues relating to Men's Rights, I count at least 15 high level "rights" which are subject to discussion. These issues are often subject of heavy media attention and debate, outside of the context and circles of MRAs. Most of the points raised in the article do not even mention men's rights movements at all - so to conflate it with that separate issue seems unreasonable. Zzz90210 (talk) 04:22, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

• Support move Much of the content under discussion for the article concerns Men's rights movement. After a move, this page could then be changed into a disambiguation page. (A few of those voting "oppose" are recently arrived single purpose accounts. For example, Zzz90210 (talk · contribs), an account registered only a few hour ago, has only edited this page on wikipedia.) Mathsci (talk) 08:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to propose that the introduction to this section contain some mention of the social context of Feminism and Feminist-driven public policy that has been enacted in Western societies over the last 3-4 decades. Most of what is understood to be "Mens rights" in the context of modern Western discourse relates to changes in law and public policy over this time period, and is to a large extent a reaction to those changes. This is not a whole-of-world view, however is applicable to most modern Western countries, and it seems like an ominous omission to leave out this important context which is really quite vital to understanding contemporary MR movements in Western countries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but only in regard to what is found in WP:Reliable sources. There should not be a construction of a new argument made here, only the summary of an existing one. Binksternet (talk) 03:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, assumption that a user does not know the rules. Hermiod (talk) 05:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article is missing a section dealing with the sexual abuse of boys and surrounding issues. These issues include:
- historical beliefs that boys/men essentially cant be sexually abused/raped by women
- the large number of boys abused within various Churches, and the difficulty in getting such abuse recognized
- the historical and present lenient treatment of female sexual abusers of boys in Western countries
- physical abuse of boys as part of punishment regimes that did not target girls, such as corporal punishment within schools
Zzz90210 (talk) 04:53, 19 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzz90210 (talk • contribs) 04:41, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read our policy on verifiability, or reliable sources? We can only include sources information, so if you'd like to add something to the article you'll need to present sources. N^oformation ^Talk 04:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you assume he is not already aware of that? It is not necessary to reply to every comment with nothing but policies. Hermiod (talk) 05:49, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please WP:AGF and don't assume you know what I assume. I'm pointing it out because if he does know, can shrug it off, but if he doesn't know, he will either get sources or not waste his time. They don't sign their posts, just like new users. Also, he didn't present a source in two different threads, which is usually indicative that someone isn't aware that you need to source information here. If s/he has a problem with what I wrote, they can take it up with me, but you have no reason to comment when someone explains to a user an important policy. N^oformation ^Talk 05:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did assume good faith, at least on his part. I am getting really tired of being told to follow a policy by people who aren't following it themselves. Hermiod (talk) 05:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, which policy exactly did I not follow? Scratch that, I'm not entering the WP:BATTLEGROUND with you. Have fun. N^oformation ^Talk 06:00, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:AGF Hermiod (talk) 06:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]