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This is an article that blurs the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia, under the euphemistic banner 'Greek love'. It currently sports pictures of a boy being sodomized and a child being abducted. Congratulations on a job well done! I can accept such an article if it has sound foundations in scholarly literature but it doesn't. It's a murky area, creatively researched by editors here who have pulled together the works of authors in different fields, none of whom have ever collaborated on this scale. Blanshard's book (or one chapter of it), published in October last year, is the only source that takes a wide-brush approach to this subject and it is used here simply as a fig leaf to cover original research. The only content unique to this article is the term 'Greek love' but there seems to be no source that discusses its history and its use across all these different contexts (Blanshard isn't really interested in the term at all). Many of the sources here don't even employ the term. The result is an article that covers pederasty yet again without contributing anything that clearly belongs here and not somewhere else, and which can continue growing at the whim of future editors happy to give some kind of Greek flavour to their abiding interest in homosexuality/pedophilia. There are other better established articles for this material. Anyway, I've fought long and hard against this controversial and unnecessary article and I'll continue to protest against it, if only for my own peace of mind, no matter what the interested parties think. I have changed my user name several times during my opposition to this article but I haven't wavered in my opposition to it. I have been User:Lucretius User:Esseinrebusinanetamenfatearenecessest, User:Amphitryoniades, User:McZeus and now McCronion (talk) 01:36, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article has a good many problems but it is far better than it was some months ago. I believe you are still trying to battle against your perceptions and misinterpretations of pederasty and pederast. You are far too detached from the subject and are reacting and not even seeing past you own comfort level. The subject is real even if the article breaks a few wiki rules and seems to give undue weight in the lead to one author it doesn't come across as simply. I know others have spent many countless hours explaining that wiki doesn't censor and that the images, while certainly pushed here to be displayed on what some might call a rather frail reasoning, others might see as being worth the lesser quality of the article by wiki standards.--Amadscientist (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've now replaced the two images I objected to. There is no necessary reason to show a child being abducted for sexual purposes, or a juvenile being sodomised, when there are so many less objectionable images to choose from. It is appropriate that WP should show discretion in its choice of images. The article is still a loose amalgam of researches from different scholars working in different fields, it still has issues of original research, and thus the confronting images were downright provocative. They belong in other articles but not here. There is an article on the Warren Cup and links are enough - why reproduce the same pictures and the same information? Of course all the sections in this article are basically recycled from other articles but at least the other sections don't offer up sexualised images of children. McCronion (talk) 02:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? The images are from real works of art, and I'm sorry that you feel offended by them, but that's no reason to exclude them. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your sympathy but put it this way: if the article had issues about content forking and original research, but we changed the content so that it was offensive to those who currently support it, it would have been deleted years ago. You're happy with the content, you are happy to overlook those issues and you really don't give a damn about the offense it causes people like me, so long as you think I am powerless to stop you. The article is basically a lane where a gang feels strong enough to dominate in defiance of WP guidelines and rules. That is one more reason why I feel strongly opposed to it. McCronion (talk) 23:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Put it this way. You don't have to read the article if you're offended by it. If the article had issues about content forking and original research, but we changed the content so that it was offensive to me, but did not violate policy, I wouldn't read it and wouldn't lose sleep over it. There are a lot of things that offend me, and I find it best to avoid those things. Can you point to a policy that suggests we should not include the images? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Others read the article and it is not about a value-neutral topic like igneous rocks. It's about pederasty, where the distiction between homosexuality and pedophilia gets blurred. The article has a history of promotional edits. Articles like this damage WP's credibility. So long as I edit WP, and so long as this article is on a large scope that is far in advance of anything found in scholarly literature, I'll be opposed to it. McCronion (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Promotional edits? Can you clarify that? Again, I ask, can you point to a policy that suggests we should not include the images? You're entitled to your personal opinion, but personal opinions are neither policies nor guidelines. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you bullet-list some characteristics of this article that would make it a "personal essay"? I wrote a great deal of it, and I don't see it as employing any methodologies or stylistic effects that I don't use in every other article on a conceptual topic, and sure doesn't express any of my personal views on anything: virtually every sentence has a citation. Cynwolfe (talk) 11:07, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give you one, just to start with. Where is the term 'Greek love' employed in any discussion on the Warren Cup? I'd like to see a quote thankyou. I might add that the article on the Warren Cup is hardly more than a stub and the info you are putting here belongs there instead. McCronion (talk) 23:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go: "On the Warren Cup, however, I would suggest that this ideal concept of Greek love is transformed into a master-slave relationship that was in keeping with the social and sexual norms of Roman lovemaking" (The Warren Cup: Homoerotic Love and Symposial Rhetoric in Silver: John Pollini: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 81, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 21-52) Looks like a good source for the article, we can expand that section a bit. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. By all means use the quote! However the pictures are already displayed atThe Warren Cup and almost all the material that is cited here belongs there. Use a link. That is what links are for. McCronion (talk) 00:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's no reason not to have the images here, that's the nice thing about bits--doesn't cost anything to reproduce them. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The image showing the abduction of Ganymede is already at Pederasty in ancient Greece and there is no need to reproduce it here, especially in light of the concerns I have already expressed. The Warren Cup images also don't need to be reproduced here when you can link instead. The article already links there so why reproduce the pictures? There is a suspicion that some people enjoy the spectacle of a boy being sodomised and you can allay that suspicion by not allowing the image to proliferate. McCronion (talk) 00:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You need to point to a policy or guideline supporting your position. These are works of art, not porn. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is from Wikipedia: offensive material:

A cornerstone of Wikipedia policy is that the project is not censored. Wikipedia editors do not remove material solely because it may be offensive, unpleasant, or unsuitable for some readers. However, it is equally true that Wikipedia does not seek to include as much offensive material as possible merely because offensive material is permitted in appropriate contexts.

Especially with respect to images, editors frequently need to choose between alternatives with varying degrees of potential offensiveness. When multiple options are equally effective at portraying a concept, Wikipedia does not retain the most offensive options merely to "show off" its ability to include possibly offensive materials. Images containing offensive material that is extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous are not protected in the name of opposing censorship.

The duplication of material with a pedophile association is gratuitous and there are better choices. McCronion (talk) 00:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you can't produce a bullet-list of personal-essay characteristics that this article exhibits; in fact, it's the kind of expository writing one finds throughout WP articles on literature, the arts, and philosophical concepts. A "personal" essay uses, for instance, first- and second-person pronouns (hence "personal"), and it expresses the opinions of the writer. I can assure you, as I have assured you before, that I found it personally disgusting and upsetting to write about the puer delicatus. (I'm appalled by the marriage of 12- and 14-year-old girls, too, since I'm the mother of one; and where's the indignation for the many paintings of women stripped naked in the presence of clothed men as a preliminary to rape? This is a frequent trope of mythological painting, and I don't go around deleting them all if they are apt illustrations of the myth and its continuance in the classical tradition.) As for the Warren Cup, you assert that this artifact promotes "pedophilia" and that it is merely offensive, not illustrative. Unless you can produce RS which characterize this cup as pedophilic, and which dismiss its aesthetic and cultural value, that's only your personal opinion. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The essay tag was put there by Amadscientist, not by me, but I can see what he is driving at. The article is an original synthesis of material: there is nothing like this in its ambitious scope in the scholarly literature. It should be titled The history of the reception of ancient Greek pederasty as understood by some anonymous contributors to Wikipedia using multiple sources that are in fact about other subjects. Look at the cited sources and their titles. You are certainly engaging in original research. You might think highly of yourself as a scholar but if you are editing WP you are a mug punter same as the rest of us and quite frankly I don't trust WP editors to mediate something as complex and value-loaded as the reception of pederasty unless they are following in the footsteps of published scholars. The image of a boy being sodomised is offensive to me as the citizen of a country where pedophilia is a crime (like your own country in fact). Given the right context, the cup is acceptable and even admirable as a piece of craftsmanship. A museum is the right context. An article published by a scholar is the right context. A WP article on The Warren Cup is the right context if it is scrupulously written. Anal intercourse is not the right context. 'Random' images generated by LGBT is the wrong context when the sodomising of the boy becomes the centre piece (which was the motivation behind my post on the LGBT talk page). And this article is not the right context in view of its history, its present state and its likely future. I have to laugh when Peter Cohen reverts my edits and accuses me of bulldozing (article History page). One individual who has never engaged in an edit war versus a group of people that has bulldozed through WP rules prohibiting original research and content forking so as to set up an article like this! It's like Frankenstein's monster - bits and pieces of other articles warmed up under a new name. McCronion (talk) 22:31, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Good to see you back, McCronion.) I can't really tell if this thread has to do with the article's being an essay or with the Warren Cup, but nothing about the cup's current presentation on this page is "extraneous, unnecessary, irrelevant, or gratuitous". It is a major piece in the first chapter of the narrative of Greek Love, and an objection that it is "extraneaous etc." seems more an objection to the article per se than to the inclusion of the cup itself. I understand that McCronion is opposed to the article altogether, which is his (I assume from the patronymic) position to take, but I have to disagree with his view of the cup. On the article's topic, a new Cambridge Companion is under contract that will surely have a couple chapters that give a better picture of "Greek Love", but anything that Cynwolfe can do to improve the material after Rome in the meantime certainly won't be the work of a "mug punter". The Cardiff Chestnut (talk) 00:11, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]