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Improper closure of discussion regarding a move of this article

As one who did not take part in the discussion about moving this article (see above), I am deeply concerned about the procedure adopted. The settled way to decide on a page move is through the mechanism of WP:RM. This correct procedure was followed in November 2011 (see archived RM). The proposed title then was the same as this time around, except with capitalisation that accords with WP:MOSCAPS ("Men's rights movement"). The closing admin's summation (with my underlining):

The result of the move request was: not moved. The article has changed significantly since the majority of the comments were posted. The majority of the current article is not about the men's rights movement per se. A new move request may be proposed, although a separate article on the movement itself (separate from the rights) would probably be a less contentious undertaking. Aervanath (talk) 03:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Disregarding established procedures, admin KillerChihuahua (whose impartiality has not been demonstrated) closed the irregular discussion with this wording (again with my underlining):

Result of the discussion is to Move (rename); regarding the other items, the result is slightly less clear. There seems to be broad general support for the suggested changes, but there is considerably less discussion and views are not as clear. I suggest you move the article, then boldly make each of the discussed edits/changes one at a time. Should there be dissent, then that change should be discussed and a resolution found. Suggest you not attempt to combine multiple content issues in one discussion, but have a separate discussion for each issue (again, this is if there is dissent.)

This amounts to a subversion, unwitting or not, of due process. In prejudicial language. The proposed move was not advertised to the community in the expected way, so many editors who would have contributed here may not have done so. It also defies a ruling by the closing admin on the "official" RM last time (see what I have underlined).
I call on KillerChihuahua to revise or remove her closure and comments of the recent discussion; and I call on editors not to move the page without a new RM conducted by the protocols of WP:RM. It would be entirely fair for any premature move to be reverted, by whoever wants to do that.
[Note: I make this submission without having formed an opinion about the intrinsic merits of the proposed move.]
♥
NoeticaTea? 02:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

This discussion has been open since 10 July; ad there is zero need for RM when the article already has competent editors who can move it. You state you have no opinion; then your complaint is procedural, and I assure you there is no strict procedure for this. You are tilting at windmills. the only reason I didn't move the darn thing already is because I was called away. Now I return to find my ethics are being called into question? This is surprising to say the least. RM is only for when you canNOT move the page yourself. There is no "procedure" one must follow. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:57, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Killer:

"This discussion has been open since 10 July; ad there is zero need for RM when the article already has competent editors who can move it."

Sheer opinion. Why have an established RM process, if it is not necessary to use it even when an admin has said that is what ought to be done (in closing the 2011 RM)?

"You state you have no opinion; then your complaint is procedural, and I assure you there is no strict procedure for this."

And I can assure you that you are wrong. Check WP:RM, and check another admin's ruling on closing the 2011 RM. You do not show any justification for acting against that procedural ruling. Such an action has recently come before ArbCom, with the result that one admin lost his admin rights.

"You are tilting at windmills."

You compound your offences with gratuitous incivility.

"Now I return to find my ethics are being called into question?"

Now, yes. ☺

"RM is only for when you canNOT move the page yourself. There is no 'procedure' one must follow."

A curious opinion. Do you have any others to declare? Care to test this one at WT:RM?
NoeticaTea? 03:07, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Please cite the ArbCom ruing you think I am going against. Please be concise. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I note (not without irony) that you probably mean "precise". This recent ArbCom case. I commend the whole of the final decision to you, for your careful and reflective consideration. NoeticaTea? 07:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
No, by god, I mean concise! You quoted me (a post which was clear to link to and on the same page) at length, and gave a wall of text with a ton of whitespace the first 2 posts you made in this section. I meant concise. Which finding of that case? KillerChihuahua?!? 11:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
KC, I find myself wondering whether you've carefully perused the recent discussion and last year's RM. And this statement is a problem: "RM is only for when you canNOT move the page yourself." RMs are proper and useful where there's a likelihood that editors will want to discuss the proposal, even if, technically, the page could be moved without community input. I came here after seeing your unexplained but very possibly WP:POINTY and threatening post on Noetica's talk page. Disappointing. Tony (talk) 03:24, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
My post on his page was in response to his posts here. Requesting he move forward with this is quite reasonable, given that now that he has raised the issue there needs to be either withdrawal (by him) or resolution (by others.) I fail to see how that is in any way POINTy, as it disrupts nothing and requests that rather than threatening me to take it to ANI, he do so, as is appropriate. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:39, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Adding: it is completely beyond my comprehension how that could be taken as "threatening". I was asked to come here, I did what I was asked to do, and now I'm getting grief from both of you for doing what I was asked to do. If anyone felt further input was needed, it would have been preferable to say so during the past month. External input is not generally sought for decisions about a page, those decisions are generally handled by the regular editors of that page, and outside input sought only if that fails, However, no one brought it up then. Failing that, Noetica could have raised concerns in a civil fashion, rather than "calling on me" to recerse myself and making wild accusations. There was no need to approach any concerns in such an insulting and accusatory fashion. Your framing of my post on her page as "threatening" or "pointy" is ... I have no words. This is an astonishing reaction to an admin responding to a request. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
the more I think about this the more astonished I am. His very first post to me about this insults and accuses me, and concludes "I hope I don't have to take this to ANI" and my response "Waiting on you" is a THREAT? Tony, I thought you had better judgment than that. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm frankly boggled by the suggestion that a formal RfC with almost universal agreement closed by an uninvolved administrator is not a sufficient process to move an article. Trying to procedurally disagree with a consensus to move a page established by a formal RfC is borderline ludicrous. Any editor with an interest in this topic who wanted to comment has had ample opportunity to comment: there was a formal RfC open for the maximum duration of a formal RfC (the tag itself was removed by a bot) and the RfC discussion itself was open for literally more than a month. Anyone who wanted to comment on this article who had it watchlisted, who looked at RfCs, or who even looked at the article at least once a month had plenty of opportunity to reply. (Coincidentally, I don't see anything at WP:UNINVOLVED that suggests that administrators who are uninvolved on the surface need to somehow conclusively demonstrate their impartiality, especially in a case like this where any reasonable reading of consensus would agree with their reading. And I see nothing in Aer's original decision that would contradict KC's decision in anywhere near a substantial enough way as to invalidate it, especially given the year+ gap between them.)

If you want to take this to ANI, please go ahead and take it to ANI. But please go ahead and do so now if you feel it needs to be done. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:43, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. There was nothing "irregular" about the discussion. Page moves have been decided on article talk pages since the beginning of Wikipedia. Personally, I think WP:RM is the more "irregular" of the two options, but both are valid means of seeking consensus for an article move. Kaldari (talk) 04:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, it is irregular to bypass the RM process if the article has already entered that process – and, as in this case, the closing admin had said "a new move request may be proposed". Most people expect that such directives will be followed, and many look out for further RMs on the same article at the usual location: WP:RM. I gave my opinion at the last "official" RM, and I did not think I would have to look anywhere other than WP:RM for any follow-up. That was a reasonable expectation, especially given the closing remarks that time. I have no opinion on the present version of the proposal, considering what new evidence and argument might have been exhibited; I, and others who watch RM activity closely, had no reason to suspect that things might proceed this way, without any open presentation to the community at WP:RM. One thing is certain: the styling with capitals has not been considered by MOS specialists. Given the forking in procedural paths, must that issue now go to a third consultation of community opinion? Very messy. Why did Killer not attend to this styling difference between the "official" RM and this irregular one? That is something an admin judging these matters ought to be on top of. Finally, how does any page move issuing from the recent process fit with the newly instituted review process for RMs (see Wikipedia:Move review)? A sort of "constitutional crisis" – and one that would be completely unnecessary if there had been continuity of process with the "official" RM of 2011, as the closing admin seems to have determined would be the way to go.
♥
NoeticaTea? 07:12, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Where is this "formal RfC with almost universal agreement closed by an uninvolved administrator"? I don't see it. Neotarf (talk) 09:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Above. the darn thing was open so darn ling that the bot removed the tags.[1] That's why I was asked[2] to close it. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:09, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's above. [3]. I agree that there is no problem with this RFC. The previous closer explicitly stated that a new discussion could be held, and it was. A new editor set up a properly advertised article RFC (which is amazing enough in itself) which attracted outside editors, ran for a full month, and now has been closed by an independent administrator. I'd also note that despite Noetica saying they had no opinion on the topic now, they opposed the move at the last move discussion.[4] [5]. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and there is no need or rule for RM's to follow Noetica's preferred procedure. Slp1 (talk) 11:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

−

You do realize there is more than one way to do most things on Wikipedia, Noetica? Take deletion. If I see an article which falls under SD criteria, I can delete it, no tag needed. Or someone ele could see it and tag it. Or it could go through prod, or Afd. The same with moves. Even if a prior request had been made at RM, I could move without even a formal Rfc, if I were bold and thought the editors of the page would generally agree with me, and I would not be breaking process at all, let alone causing a "constitutional crisis". Really, truly. Someone might tell me I'd been a bit hasty, and should have sought consensus, but that's all. And this is more than enough process for this move to happen. If you really want to be sure you are included on any page's major (and minor) changes, you will watchlist that page. Any other method will not work. Pages are moved, merged, and even deleted without showing up on pages like RM, and Afd. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I see now that you've been told before, when you expressed concerns "procedure" was't followed at an Rm that we're not big on process here, and rms are often reversed in later discussions.User_talk:Noetica#A_fresh_RM_can_be_opened_at_any_time and the linked discussion shows me that you have a problem accepting that there is no one right procedure for moves. I'm sorry if it upsets you, but allow me to confirm that is the case. Not only can a fresh Rm be opened, but also this can be done by Rfc (as here) or with simple discussion on the talk page, or even boldly by one editor. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
KC, a more collegial style of talk-page engagement would be much appreciated. Tony (talk) 12:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. I object to be accused of "serious impropriety" and breaking process and having what was clearly meant to be a threat to "take this to ANI" - as though ANI were a stick to beat me with - on the first communication[6] from Noetica; I object to my request to please do so in order to resolve this as "POINTy" and "threatening" by you; I request that you specify what part of my post above to which you are replying you find non-informative and non-collegiate. It seems obvious based on posts here and elsewhere Noetica is laboring under the impression that there is a strict procedure to be followed for page moves. I am seeking to disabuse him of this false impression and explain, as lucidly as I can, that this is not the case. To what in that do you object? Please be specific. KillerChihuahua?!? 13:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is beginning to look more and more irregular. First, I don't see it listed either at WP:Requests for comment/All or WP:Centralized discussion/Archive or at WP:Administrator's noticeboard, where the person closing would be expected to review, summarize, and announce the results of the discussion. A template seems to have been placed for the discussion but I don't see the "brief, neutral statement of the issue below the template".

Also the advice to "keep your statement or question simple and succinct, so that the RfC attracts a clear and actionable response" does not seem to have been followed, since the section that is supposed to be the RFC is titled "Rename article to Men's Rights Movement, also serious article issues". The lead sentence of the section is "Trying to address scope of article, as well as issues with the use of sources when it comes to describing the subject," which makes it look like some sort of content discussion. Nowhere in the section title does it say either "Requested Move" or "Request for comment".

More problems appear in the discussion. It appears the proposal is to change both the content and the title of the article. Why not just start a new article? Some of the comments address the title; others address the content. Yet, how can you reach consensus on a title without knowing what the article is about? This same problem was noted in the previous RM, which was the reason the article was not moved at that time. As a side note, I count 30 editors participating in the previous RM, but only 7 in the above "Rename article to Men's Rights Movement, also serious article issues" section.

Ah, I think I have found the original RFC statement now. Diff: [7] "Trying to address scope of article, as well as issues with the use of sources when it comes to describing the subject. A lot of the sources come from other than the subject of the article, rather than self-declarations, and I feel this is causing problems with the article's tone, as well as WP:SYNTH issues." A move request is not mentioned here. Also the OP stated the intention of making the changes to the article within a few days, but has not yet done so. Where does this leave the article content with respect to the title?

Yes, KillerChihuahua has been asked to do something, but admins are not under any obligation to honor every request made of them. At this point it is now clear that the title change is a potentially controversial proposal (and WP:TITLECHANGES is probably a better policy to cite here) and that the RFC, if that's what it was, should be properly closed. Then a proper RM should be submitted per WP:TITLE, preferably after reaching a consensus about the article content.

Regards, Neotarf (talk) 14:16, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Without addressing the rest of your comment,s on Wikipedia Move and Rename are synonyms, so the fact that the primary topic under consideration was a move is in the very subject line. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:28, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
The procedure for closing an Rfc is found at Wikipedia:CLOSE. KillerChihuahua?!? 15:05, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Note: the 2 posts above were a reply prior to this change. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:48, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure what the point is of making comments about minor edits that do not change the meaning of the text, when they are readily viewable in the history, but yes, the above edit added a carriage return to the first paragraph and the word "this" to the last sentence of the fourth paragraph. Diff: [8]. For those who are keeping track, I have also removed a comma from the second paragraph.Diff:[9] Neotarf (talk) 15:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
You have read by now that the reason you don't see it listed anywhere is because it was listed for 30 days, and that ran out 4 days ago, right? If you missed this, then allow this post to enlighten you. If you already saw this, apologies for belaboring the point. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:33, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Sidenote: of course the previous RM had more participants than this one. When the previous RM was run, this article was the subject of an ANI thread that was longer and more active than anything else at ANI at the time. Are you suggesting that for any consensus about this article to have legitimacy, it needs to blow up to that level of drama every time? Kevin Gorman (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
"Blow up to that level of drama"? "ANI thread"? I don't see it. Maybe one of these? [10] Neotarf (talk) 17:14, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
This ANI thread was running at the same time as the previous move discussion. It brought far more eyes to this article than it normally gets, as would be expected with any long ANI thread. Without a long ANI thread (and for that matter, threads on most other major ENWP boards and a few mailing lists,) there's no way the previous discussion would have had thirty participants. The lower (7 vs 30) level of participation in this discussion doesn't indicate it was poorly advertised or illegitimate - it just indicates that there wasn't an equivalent explosion associated with it. 72.220.100.29 (talk) 17:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Very interesting, and an influx of newly created editors as well, but I notice that some of the websites for recruiting the new editors are now down or inactive. And I don't see a history of disruption as a good enough reason to ignore process and invoke WP:IAR. If anything, you want more eyes on this to catch potential mis-steps such as the ones Noetica has pointed out. And you don't want to give even the appearance of railroading the discussion. I have some more thoughts on the subject, but must go out for a while. Neotarf (talk) 19:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Excuse me? Who suggested that a history of disruption was an excuse to ignore process and invoke IAR? Noone as far as I can see. Strawman arguments are singularly unhelpful.
I'd note that the previous discussion was also numerically strongly in favour of the move (17-10) - and even stronger when you consider that several of the "oppose" editors were SPAs recruited from men's rights websites. Probably not right of me judge the arguments, but I'd say the move arguments, from a wide range of experienced editors and administrators were stronger too!! To my mind, that was the strange close. But life went on, until a completely new editor suggested moving the article too, and started an RFC. I don't see cogent reason given to why the above RFC discussion, which was posted for a full month and attracted the article's editors as well as new voices, is in any way invalid. The issue either needs to be taken to another forum, or dropped.
BTW, Noetica brought up the issue of capitalization, and I would like to say that I am very happy to take his advice about what would be the correct version of Men's Rights Movement in terms of style/capitalization etc. I can't imagine that any of the other involved editors would have a problem with stylistic changes to destination name either. --Slp1 (talk) 20:42, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
Nowhere did I (the IP was me - I forgot to sign in) say that previous drama was an excuse to invoke IAR. The post of yours that I was replying to implied that the recent RfC lacked legitimacy because it only had seven participants instead of 30. I was disagreeing with that. If that wasn't what you were suggesting in your earlier post, then my sidenote was not relevant, but it sure seemed to be what you were suggesting.
Also, can you explain how running a more than month long advertised RfC that hadn't received comments for weeks before it was closed can possibly equate to even the appearance railroading a discussion? How is it possible that a 34 day, 11 hour, and 42 minute long RfC is 'railroading' a discussion? Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:15, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
These questions have all been answered already above, very patiently, and with links to the appropriate policy pages. I don't see this discussion going in a very productive direction, so at this point I will not continue to participate. But I will respond to the incivil accusation that I have "raising a singularly unhelpful strawman" about IAR. Here is the diff: [11] " The minor procedural points that have been brought up are easily covered by WP:NOTBURO." And if you go to WP:NOTBURO, what do you find? "If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them." Looks to me like the link goes straight to WP:IAR. Cheers. Neotarf (talk) 23:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
No "questions were answered" - two editors voiced concern that a perfectly legitimate Rfc which was open for the max time and closed as a virtual snowball was somehow "improper" and "out of procedure" and "irregular". This is due to thinking a RM is required for a move. It is not. The Rfc is more than sufficient. KillerChihuahua?!? 00:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Neotarf: I never suggested that "a history of disruption..." was "..a good enough reason to ignore process and invoke WP:IAR." I suggested that failing to bring up any meaningful non-procedural reason why a 34 day RfC was insufficient was a good enough reason to invoke WP:NOTBURO. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:36, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Indeed; and I further note that Neotarf appears to be either cherry-pciking or looking at the main link rather than readign that. I see "Disagreements are resolved through consensus-based discussion, rather than through tightly sticking to rules and procedures. Furthermore, policies and guidelines themselves may be changed to reflect evolving consensus." as well as "A procedural error made in a proposal or request is not grounds for rejecting that proposal or request." This is surely the rationale for Gorman citing NOTBURO. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:43, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

No point brought up in this discussion so far is significant enough to necessitate a rerunning (as an RM) an advertised RfC that ran for more than a month that resulted in a clear consensus of participating editors and included more or less every editor who has made significant contributions to this page in the recent past. With a month long advertised RfC, anyone who had any interest at all in contributing to this article (or to discussions about this article) had plenty of time to do so. The minor procedural points that have been brought up are easily covered by WP:NOTBURO. If you disagree, please take this to ANI within the next 24 hours or I will begin to implement the close. Kevin Gorman (talk) 15:40, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Action at WP:ANI concerning the RFC and its closure

In response to Kevin's clear deadline (for which I thank him), I have initiated an action at WP:ANI.
☺♫♪!
NoeticaTea? 12:48, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We'll have to disagree on that one, Tony. The only thing I could have learned from this is that being the uninvolved admin on an article on article probation nets you grief, that there are people who will nitpick and wikilawyer anything, and that some people think "waiting on you" is a pointy threat. I already knew the first two, and I reject the last. Puppy has spoken, puppy is done. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:17, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I got the notice for the ANI on my talk page, but it seems that it was opened and closed in less than a day and I didn't get a chance to explain my actions.

I think it's fairly clear that I'm not a "newbie" editor as I went straight for the talk page before doing any major changes to the article. I've been an avid reader of Wikipedia, as well as a reader of Wikipedia talk pages, ArbCom cases, AN:I, among other things.

Regarding my RFC, I thought I made it clear that my main problem with the article is the scope. For me at least, discussing the scope of an article very much involves the article's name and the dilemma of "should we change the article to match the name, or should we change the name to match the article"? I was not simply asking for a page move, because my issue with the article is more than just move. It's clear from how people reacted to my suggested changes to the article that simply changing the article's name will not solve the article's problem. When I read the guidelines for WP:RFC it says "If possible, keep your statement or question simple and succinct, so that the RfC attracts a clear and actionable response." Whether my blurb was not descriptive enough, I'm unsure of, but I reasoned that any clicking through to my RFC will read all of what I wrote and understand my stance on the name change.

If I made a faux pas here and should have used WP:RM, I apologize. What is strange to me then, is that if this was the established procedure to do this, how come during the month-long RFC none of the users here brought it up? From 10 July to 14 August, not one of the users said anything about needing WP:RM, or anything about it really. In fact, the very first response I got was from User:TParis, an admin, who didn't mention it. I would assume that if it was an egregious violation of procedure, that this admin would have brought it up.

In any case, I consider that enough has been said, and we've waited long enough. It's time to make considerable changes to the article. I'll begin now by using my sandbox as a mirror of this article with my proposed changes. Whether or not the name of the article ought to be changed, there wasn't anyone saying "the content is fine as it currently is", so I'm going to go ahead and start fixing that now. Thanks.--JasonMacker (talk) 22:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I have begun making my proposed changes to the article at my sandbox (User:JasonMacker/sandbox). I hope all interested editors will take a look there once I'm finished making my proposed changes.--JasonMacker (talk) 22:06, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm done with the first round of edits that I would like to see take place in this article. here is the diff showing how I would change the article thus far. Looking for feedback. Thanks. --JasonMacker (talk) 22:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry about what happened, Jason. Going the RFC route was fine, as almost everybody agrees.
As far as your sandbox is concerned, I don't think it is a good idea to do a big edit with multiple changes in multiple sections from your sandbox to the article. I agree with KillerChihuahua's close that the best way of going forward if you want to get some feedback is to start some very specific discussions about proposed edits. I'd suggest that you pick one or two specific changes that you propose (ie adding such and such a word/phrase or deleting such and such sentence/section) and make a separate heading for each here on the talkpage, explaining why you think each is an improvement to the article Then people can chime in on each individual edit, with everybody quite clear about what we are talking about. Slp1 (talk) 02:07, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
Normally I would support being BOLD and just changing the article, but due to the article probation, I have to agree with Slp1. You don't have to specifically list every change, but at least the major additions and deletions. Kaldari (talk) 00:16, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Oof

Is there any kind of WP:ALEXANDER or WP:TRUMAN policy that would allow the deletion and retroactive annihilation of this article for the sheer impossibility of getting anything done with it? Let it die, dead, and the issues will re-manifest, individually, in bite-sized portions.

Wikipedia grows and truth languishes. I never thought!

There's a theory of bureaucratic equilibria & longevity somewhere in here... Undiskedste (talk) 16:24, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

I have begun making my proposed changes to the article at my sandbox (User:JasonMacker/sandbox). I'm done with the first round of edits that I would like to see take place in this article. here. Feel free to let me know what other changes you'd like to see. Thanks. --JasonMacker (talk) 22:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

implementation of the RfC close

In the interests of implementing the RfC close in a (relatively) timely fashion, I'm going to give this article a once-over, changing a few words to reflect the new title, and introducing a new (and fully sourced) lede focused on the men's rights movement. As soon as I've done this, I'll take care of the technical details of the move, and the article will appear at it's new title. I don't think that any of the minor changes that I am about to make will be controversial, and I think the new lede will be pretty uncontroversial too. If anyone disagrees with any of them, I'm more than happy to discuss them. Right now I'm shooting to get the article in to appropriate enough shape that it can be moved without being nonsensical, not shooting to get it anywhere near perfect.

This article is going to need a lot of changes, especially since we now have it at a title that will allow us to write a high quality article. I am intentionally not making most of those changes right now or all at once. I would encourage editors to make changes in small blocks instead of all at once, starting new talk page sections for any changes they think will be controversial (and a different new talk page section for every different type/section of changes that they are making that they think might be controversial.) That way, we can discuss and reach consensus on individual elements one at a time, instead of trying to deal with a large number of changes in the same edit.

Tangentially: I'm pretty busy in real life currently, and will be until the start of September. I won't be editing this page as much as I'd like until then, although I'll try to set aside some time to contribute before then. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:11, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I ended up making more changes than I expected. I updated the contents of the lede to reflect the new article title, removed most of the content in the previous 'history' section (since it tried to deal with men's rights generally in a very hodgepodge way,) and incorporated some of the content previously in the men's rights movement section plus some new stuff in to a new history section. I intentionally left most content in, even if I thought it was inappropriate, as long as it would still make sense if the article is titled 'men's rights movement' - I just did the minimum necessary to have the article at least make sense at its new title, and a little bit of additional consolidation.
Any content I deleted can still be retrieved from the history section, and I would encourage you to do so and incorporate it back in to the article if you can come up with a good way to do so. This entire article still needs a lot of work - There's a lot of content that doesn't belong in the article that is currently in it, and a lot of content that does belong that isn't in it. The lede I put in and most of the other stuff I edited is pretty crappy, this is just an absolutely basic start. Part of me hates even committing an edit with this many problems; please don't take this as an endorsement of any part of the current version, and feel free to change as needed to improve.Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:02, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
I totally forgot that I don't have +suppressredirect. I've poked a few separately but figured I'd post a note here: could one of the sysops who watches this page finish up the move? I outlined what I think is the best way to do it here - I just forgot I can't suppress redirects. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:10, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
All I remember is I advocated adding MRM type content to this article, oh, a year ago. Now that we are on this article name, would anyone like to dig back and grag the meaningful stuff that was pushed aside as not relevant before? Arkon (talk) 03:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
As soon as the RM is settled and this article stays at this title, I intend to, yes, as well as generally making this article much more thorough and less sucky. Until the RM is settled I don't see much point in putting effort in to doing so, though - though I do expect the RM to close with the article staying at this title. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't see anything remotely valuable in the history, so I'm not going to put a large link to it at the top of the page, but for the record: this talk subpage contains the history of the page that was originally at Men's rights movement. It is essentially the preserved result of an inappropriate split during the men's rights blow-up of last year, it has no meaningful content history in it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Anti-feminism?

I highly doubt that the majority of men's rights supporters are anti-feminist. The entire idea of men's rights is that men and women should be equals. If not, then women's rights should be described as an umbrella term, including "anti-masculism", as well as women's suffrage, lesbian rights, etc. The entire gender equality debate is far from equal and fair. yonnie (talk) 14:25, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

The article doesn't say that a majority of men's rights supporters are anti-feminist; it says that men's rights has been the focus of a number of social movements, including anti-feminist ones. Besides the (kind of haphazard) cites already in the article, this claim is explicitly supported by "Messner, Michael. Politics of masculinities : men in movements. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 1997, pg42." It doesn't matter what the article on women's rights says; we go by what sources say, not by some sort of weird forced equality. If sources treat subjects differently, than so do we. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:49, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Then I guess the issue is much bigger than what's on Wikipedia. The double standard is appalling. Maybe Wikipedia needs to reconsider what it considers "neutral sources". yonnie (talk) 23:22, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
If you think there's an appalling error or horribly incorrect point of view in multiple sources that meet our reliability standards, then the easiest way to fix it it to go write a book (and get it published through a reputable press,) or an academic journal article or something else that meets our standards for reliability that explains what the error is and why it's an error. You could go to WP:VPP or another appropriate forum and try to suggest a change to our sourcing policies, but our sourcing policies are difficult to convince people to change, and I'm honestly not sure what standard could be set that would exclude Messner or some of the other sources used here anyway - Messner is a professor at USC writing within his own field in a book published by a reputable press.
Tangentially, I cited the wrong page number. The statement in Messner's book that supports the statement you object to is found on page 41, not 42. (I haven't looked indepth at the citations for the statement that are already in the article, but I'd imagine they support it too.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:54, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Anti-feminism as in, against privileged feminism, is a more accurate description. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.95.129.245 (talk) 12:13, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

We would need a good secondary source that uses that term. Jojalozzo 03:09, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Percentage Of War Casualties/Gender Differences In Combat

Surprised there is no mention of this. Men make up at least 95% of the victims of wars. War clearly is a men's rights issue, why is there no mention of this in the article? Also women see actual combat much much less than men, there should be a mention of this also in the article.

Crwd Ctrl (talk) 07:34, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

It is not yet included in this article because no one has yet added a section to the article talking about it using reliable sources that talk about the issue in detail. (Please note that those reliable sources do need to explicitly discuss the problem as a men's rights issue. We don't include things on this page just because editors think they are men's rights issues, since we have a prohibition against original research. We only include issues that are discussed in reliable sources as being related to men's rights.)Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually what I'd like to ask of Crwd Ctrl (talk · contribs) is why is this editor creating dozens of sock accounts to add BLP violations and POV to multiple articles? That, I would like to know - Alison ❤ 08:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
How can one person be so good at finding socks? That's what I'd like to know. Dang, you are too darn good. KillerChihuahua?!? 01:49, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
LOL - I'll admit that I actually found this sockfarm entirely by accident! - Alison ❤ 02:32, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, luck is as good as skill some days, and I know you're skilled as well. KillerChihuahua?!? 02:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm lousy at sockpuppetry stuff, but I'd like to say that I almost, very almost, detected part of this same farm last week [12]! I should have had more confidence in my hunch, I guess!! Ah well, another time! --Slp1 (talk) 02:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

In war, eg Bosnia/Serbia, most of Africa, it is the civilian women and children that are tortured, raped and killed by male soldiers, both within UN camps and without.Men usually suffer a quicker kill. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.89.73.107 (talk) 07:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

SPLC

The SPLC has issued a couple reports that may be appropriate to mention briefly in the section on the men's rights movement - this and this. I'm not sure offhand if they're appropriate for inclusion, so I figured I'd just drop the link here and let y'all decide. Kevin (kgorman-ucb) (talk) 01:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

well it's a verifiable paper publication that's used as a law enforcement resource, from a notable organisation who's work and research have been constantly reported in the news. they also did an article on mra claims. [13]. just had a look on the reliable sources noticeboard and they say that "intelligence report" is a RS known for fact-checking and has awards for investigative journalism. Paintedxbird (talk) 13:51, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
This definitely needs to be included. SPLC is a reputable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by
This definitely needs to be included. SPLC is a reputable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.240.172.151 (talk) 05:23, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
I have a few problems with it being included, mainly it's admitted bias, which is discussed on the RS board, and I don't see any sort of "consensus" that it is indeed reliable unless I missed something, which I'm completely open to. The article they did addressed 3 concerns of mens rights, while it is an article it is anything but in-depth. TickTock2 (talk) 17:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I take that back, after looking at another link to SPLC, they do seem to agree it's a RS, so I cede that point. My point about the bias stands, so I think it can be included, but should adhere to weight issues. (ie this is a topic about Men's Rights in general, not a specific group) and the war on women article is written as a editorial, more than factual. TickTock2 (talk) 17:15, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
They "disprove" an MRA claim by ignoring data from the exact same study that MRAs use to prove the very claim. The CDC's NISVS found that, if one includes a male being forced to penetrate without his consent as rape, in 2010 the same number of women and men were raped - they just chose not to call it rape. The article ignores that. They also mispresent the MRA-asserted parity in domestic violence by conflating it with violence in general (the claim says violence, the study they talk about says partner violence, then back to general), and dismiss only a single study (which, for the record, nobody who posted on the issue in the largest MRA forum on the internet had ever heard of). And only a tiny portion of people assert that false claims are as high as "close to half or even more" (weasel words, much?). In the other article that talks about the men's rights subreddit on reddit, they talk about the claims of a moderator that had stepped down 6 months before without mentioning it. They may be an RS, but it's a terrible article, can it not be excluded or at least posted along with criticism (at least if a good source is found)?


(above, unsigned)

Two curious matters in reading the article, Leader’s Suicide Brings Attention to Men’s Rights Movement about the self-immolation suicide.
  • The external name is "Leader’s Suicide Brings Attention to Men’s Rights Movement;" but the internal article web-name is "War on Women!"
  • Only mentioning in passing, that there are legitimate men's issues, it take a tragic suicide of a despairing father, and makes it, somehow, an attack on women.
A Wikipedia Editor could not get away with that sort of weaseling and POV violation. cregil (talk) 23:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
You are right that the article takes a more explicit point of view than would be appropriate for a Wikipedia editor, but there's not really any such thing as a 'POV violation' in a source. We don't require (or expect or desire) our sources to be neutral, we just expect our editors to portray the sources that do exist in a neutral fashion. If something meets our standards to be a reliable source (and SPLC articles do,) then we're perfectly okay with the source having an opinion. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
It concerns me that what I would expect to be a balanced source, has such a radical (a father committing suicide is equivocal to an "attack on women") and disingenuous posture (the article's title and the content of that article being irreconcilable). The word "reliable" must take on new meaning. Blacks claim unequal and harsher sentencing in criminal court, we do not go to the KKK for counterpoint in working on an article. We already know the organization has taken a stance against the subject and we also know that the organization is not directly involved in the issue.
My point is, when an otherwise reliable source has, for reasons of its own, chosen an extreme position against the subject matter-- it ceases to be a valid source; further, that as the SPLC has no apparent work among Men's Groups, they have no direct relation to the subject.
That men see themselves as disadvantaged in certain issues, is NOT served by a source which is quick to marginalize and demonize. A father seeking custody of his children is not attacking women and a husband unable to gain logistics support (a shelter) when physically abused by his wife is not the concern of the SPLC-- although I cannot imagine why the SPLC has taken such a position. cregil (talk) 23:04, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Reliable does have a special meaning in the context of Wikipedia, please see our policy that deals with identifying reliable sources. If a source meets the guidelines set forth in our sourcing policies, than the source is not made somehow invalid no matter how much you disagree with its opinions. We don’t require the sources we used to be balanced or neutral, we just require them to meet the standards we set forward for reliability. The SPLC meets our standards for reliability: they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and have editorial oversight. They are also generally well-regarded outside of Wikipedia – their publications, especially their Intelligence Reports (which this is one of) – have wide circulation among domestic law enforcement agencies, are frequently cited in the mainstream media, are frequently used by academics, etc.
Since SPLC publications meet the standard we set forth for reliability, it also doesn’t matter that they have not previously been directly involved in the men’s rights movement. We assume that sources that meet our standards for reliability are reliable when they are talking about subject areas that they choose to talk about, even when they are subject areas that they are not part of movements for.
SPLC is an advocacy group, so its opinion shouldn’t (and won’t) be included as fact in any article here. However, they are a prominent advocacy group – they are usually recognized as the leading authority on hate groups in the US – so their opinion will be worthy of a mention in the eventual rewrite of this article. And I see no reason to believe that SPLC is an unreliable source for matters of straight fact, like “The suicide of Thomas Ball drew additional attention to the MRM.”
Also: please don’t make hyperbolic emotionally charged analogies such as comparing the relationship between the SPLC and men to that of black people and the Klan. Kevin Gorman (talk) 11:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Kevin, 1) You read what I wrote and what you got out of that is that I do not know the policy on reliable sources. 2) You read an analogy of a biased source not involved with MRMs, and what you took from that was that I was comparing inner city minorities to fathers denied custody rights-- calling it "hyperbole." 3) You read the article and what you got out of it was that the suicide drew attention to the MRM? Really? No. Not really. You have another motive for pretending not to understand. Otherwise, you might have addressed my point rather than provide the condescension. Address my point, not me, and not the points you wished I were making.--cregil (talk) 05:55, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

  1. You suggested that that the SPLC article was inappropriate to use a source because it had an opinion that you disagreed with. This is not something that is suggested by or supported by in any of our sourcing policies, so I did assume that you hadn't read them in-depth.
  2. If I misrepresented your analogy, I'm sorry, but there's still no reason to be comparing the KKK and the SPLC on this page in any context. On a page that tends to draw more heat than light to begin with, I cannot imagine why comparing the most famous monitor of hate groups in the United States - which is a well-regarded non-profit thinktank that meets WP:RS - to the most famous hate group in the United States - which is, well, none of those things (and fails WP:RS) - would be a good idea.
  3. The article contains that information, as a statement of fact. So, yes. It contains a lot of other information and opinion. I was giving an example of information that could be derived from the article that is not covered in many other reliable sources, not trying to portray the opinion of the article.
Please read the terms of probation that this article is currently under. You're free to think I have a shadowy ulterior motive, but the terms of probation require you to comment on my content points, rather than comment on my motives. Kevin Gorman (talk) 13:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  1. I most certainly did NOT suggest that "the SPLC article was inappropriate to use a source because it had an opinion that you disagreed with." I questioned validity based on evidence of bias-- not based upon agreement with me. Do not seek to marginalize my comments which were made in good faith-- as that statement clearly and indisputably does. I expressed a valid concern-- not an attack. Please treat my comments as they are.
  2. If you apologize, then why restate your misrepresentation as if accurate? Do not put words in my mouth, as it demonstrates a lack of sincere contrition. I explained the extent of the analogy when I made it. It is till there for you to read and address, if you like. I also expressed dismay that such a group would chose to victimize a victim-- a man who seems to have no relation, whatsoever, with a hate group-- that is, assuming you had researched the subject as I had already done. I came to this discussion knowing the subject-- having written of it elsewhere when the suicde took place; so I may well have insight as to the article's inappropriate use made of that suicide in relation to hate groups.
  3. You cherry picked your quote from that article and you know it. I knew it, too. So, No, that quote does not represent what you believe the article to be about, as you have now stated. But you chose to use it, and only now claim that you did so as "an example of information that could be derived from the article." Maybe so, but you would likely admit that the opposite of that reason is more easily deduced in the context of your original reply. You make my point: One piece of truth in a sea of hogwash does not validate the hogwash, and thus a reliable source becomes a questionable one.
Sauce for the goose. Engage my discussion and not the discussion you wished I were taking. I have declared that expectation twice. Go back and read Number One if you do not understand why I have repeated myself.
--cregil (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Please provide a link to any relevant sourcing policy that states that biased articles are invalid as sources, or any sourcing policies that state that your own personal opinion (i.e.: your belief that the article speaks of the suicide in an inappropriate way) is a valid criterion to treat as invalid a source that otherwise meets WP:RS. Pieces by well-established thinktanks like the EFF, ACLU, or SPLC are appropriate sources to use for matters of simple fact (like the fact that Ball's suicide drew additional attention to the MRM) and the opinions that they contain are appropriate to put in to articles in relevant places in appropriate quantities with attribution (like, "In a recent report the Southern Poverty Law Center stated that some prominent men's rights advocates vilify women.") Kevin Gorman (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

We are not limited to policy.

We make use of our intellect, any ethics, and the ability to distinguish biased writing from the unbiased. That is what the Talk Page is for-- so that editors may bring forth issues of concern so that others editors may consider. I was responding to the topic begin by just such another editor. You have a problem with that I responded to it-- So what?

What a Talk Page is not for, is exampled by your contrary replies. The only editor attempting to lord over another editor is you-- it is taken this many comments just to back out of range of your attacks.

My original expressed concerns remain un-discussed. Instead, I have had to unravel your rhetoric in rewording my comments so that I fit your model of an antagonist. Stop it! Find something constructive to do. I made no attack on you, I expressed a concern-- which you are not addressing.

Let those who might be interested, do so, without comment since you have nothing constructive to offer. You disparage, condescend and distract again, and I will escalate this.--cregil (talk) 21:12, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I've previously linked the terms of probation that this article is currently under in a reply to you here; I'll post a formal notification of them on your talk page concurrently with submitting this post, because I hadn't previously and believe a formal notification is necessary before they have any force, although I'm not sure. I would like to especially draw your attention to the point that says that discussions should be focused on the content involved, and not on other editors. Many of your recent posts have been almost solely making unsupported claims about my behavior and motivations and not dealing with content issues. If you keep making accusations towards me, I will be asking uninvolved administrators to review your conduct and sanction you if they find that it does violate the article probation terms. (And to be clear: any uninvolved administrator would also be reviewing my behavior.)
You are right that we are not restricted solely to following policy, but site-wide policies reflect the codified consensus of Wikipedia editors. We need strong reasons to deviate from them. I don't think you have presented any, and certainly, a consensus has not emerged to deviate from WP:NPOV which is a fundamental site wide policy, or WP:RS, which is a guideline. Barring a strong consensus to deviate from existing sitewide policies, we default to following them. If you would like to draw more opinions to this issue to try to establish a consensus in favor of your viewpoint, you can run a request for comment, or run the issue past the reliable sources noticeboard. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:04, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Hadn't we already agreed this source isn't fit for this article? I have my own gripes with how this one has been handled (Arguments against inclusion of material because it is about the Men's Rights movement, then turning around later and trying to change it into a Men's Rights Movement article), but let us not waste our time. It's a crap source. Moving on.... Arkon (talk) 21:29, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the only talk page section that ever mentioned SPLC, including in the archives, and you've never posted in it previously. Until cregil started to post here a couple days ago, only one editor had disagreed completely with its inclusion. So, no: there was not a previous consensus that this article was inappropriate (and you had not posted an opinion prior to your current post about the SPLC.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:04, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and started an RSN thread about this: WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is an SPLC intelligence report a reliable source for information about the men's rights movement? Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:30, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Apologies, this source has come up on numerous other pages and I confused this with that. What information are you looking to include with this source? Start there and we can move forward. Arkon (talk) 00:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Here we go [14] Arkon (talk) 00:17, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm on really lame internet currently and just got my response to this deleted when I tried to post it for some reason. I don't have time to draft another version of it, so I'll leave you with a short answer for now and reply in more detail later. The kind of things I want to use it for I posted in more detail the RSN link that I posted directly above your comment - assuming the RFC closes as move to MRM, I think it would be useful to flush out certain facts about the men's rights movement (it's one of the only third party sources that even mentions the immolation of Tom Ball as a significant event), and think that the opinion may warrant a sentence or so in a section about reactions to the MRM or something similar. This would be sticking to what the article actually says, not saying anything like "The SPLC says the men's rights movement is a hate group," since that's not something that is supported by the article or was intended by the author. (I also haven't had time to read the thread you linked yet, but will look through it later.) (Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Why would we use such a biased source here since it apparently has no actual connection to the topic? --Nouniquenames (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Jenks24 (talk) 14:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)


Men's rights movement → Men's rights – Current title seems to define the subject in a way that overlaps with several existing articles such as Men's movement, Masculism, and Father's rights movement. This rename was recently implemented out of the normal process via an RfC. I believe there is also a POV issue with the current name as many seek to diminish the idea of "men's rights" as a legitimate issue and we are now lacking in an article treating it as a legitimate subject of discussion.The Devil's Advocate (talk) 01:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC) Note: The recent rename changed the subject of the article and content was edited to reflect this change. Here is the article at the time of the name change.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Survey

If the Men's movement article is the one you are thinking about as "already" in existence, you should know that the Men's Movement is not synonymous with Men's Rights Movement. The Men's movement includes groups such as the profeminism, Mythopoetic men's movement, and Christian men's movement such as Promise Keepers as well as the Men's Rights Movement, and of course the focus of these other groups is not men's rights. See these scholarly books for more details. [15]][[16]]--Slp1 (talk) 02:00, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. We have to start from what the sources say. I've done long and exhaustive searches for reliable sources about men's rights. Almost all of those I've found discuss the topic of men's rights in the context of the men's rights movement and their claims. Do you have other reliable sources to offer about men's rights? Ones that treat it as a separate subject from the men's rights movement? If so, let's see them. If the topic does prove to be a "legitimate subject" as you put it, I will gladly support the move back to Men's Rights. Slp1 (talk) 01:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Support: one of the best Move rationale's I've comes across in a long time. The sources specifically discuss "men's rights." Any off topic content can be moved into one of the myriad of other articles in this area. – Sir Lionel, EG(talk) 01:42, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Which reliable sources discuss men's rights? Please detail them so that we can see the basis on which the article will be written. --Slp1 (talk) 01:44, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment - To any editor who supports moving the page back to men's rights, I have a two-part challenge. First, find and post at least six reliable sources that deal with "men's rights" as a topic not specifically in the context of the men's rights movement. Then, write and post a coherent statement of the scope you envision for this article, and, since we don't conduct original research, justify that scope with reliable sources that use similar scopes. (I'll have more comments later, I'm in an irl timecrunch and will be brief for the next few days.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Also, no: the men's rights movement and the general men's movement are not the same thing. The men's rights movement is a subset of the general men's movement. The MRM branched off from the men's liberation movement (which is another constituent element of the men's movement) in the 1970's, and almost all reliable sources (especially reliable academic sources) treat the men's rights movement as a separate entity from the men's liberation movement, the general men's movement, and the father's rights movement. I'll respond in more detail later as I have time, but this is consistent across all high quality academic sources (many of which are cited in the article, and which I'll explicitly list later.) So, if you disagree, please bring actual sources in to the discussion instead just saying you believe there is a POV issue. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
This objection does not address the issue of duplicating existing subjects as Masculism and the men's rights movement are clearly referring to the same subject. It would appear to be an argument about the independent notability of the subject of men's rights and that does not belong in the rename discussion.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 02:48, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Are you seriously suggesting that it's not appropriate to discuss whether or not the existence of an article is appropriate in a discussion about whether or not we should make an article have that title? We don't choose titles based on what individual editors think, just like we don't make our content reflect the viewpoint of individual editors. Quoting directly WP:ARTICLETITLE, "Article titles are based on what reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject by." Very few sources treat 'men's rights' as a topic separate from the men's rights movement, and none of the academic sources I have ever seen do so. Sources are critically important in determining an appropriate title. If all high quality english language sources refer to the men's rights movement and not men's rights, then by our main title policy, that should be what the article is called. I've looked as hard as I can and found no high quality sources that treat the subject of this article as 'men's rights' and not the 'men's rights movement' - if you believe the article should be titled 'men's rights,' please provide some sources to support your position. (You're also incorrect that the MRM and masculism are the same thing, but even if you were right that would be at best an argument for a merge discussion between those two articles, not an argument for a separate men's rights article. If you'd like, I'll provide high quality RS'es demonstrating that they have different origins and are not synonyms later when I have more time, but I don't find it relevant to this move request.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Men's rights and men's rights movement are not the same subject so your quote from WP:TITLE is not valid in this discussion. Again, this is an argument about notability of the subject itself that does not belong in a rename discussion.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 14:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
You've not advanced any policy compliant reason for this article to be moved, and have explicitly stated that you don't believe what is according to the title policy the main criterion in selecting a title applies. Please explain what basis in policy you think applies to this move discussion because I am seriously confused about your viewpoint. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
I did mention POV, as there does appear to be an attitude that seeks to reject the notion of men's rights as a legitimate issue. Duplication is another policy-compliant reason as we have several articles regarding men's movements and men's rights movements.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:29, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
NPOV comes from summarizing what the reliable sources say about a topic. Once again, do you have any reliable sources showing that Men's rights is a "legitimate issue", discussed separately from the context of the viewpoint of the MRM? --Slp1 (talk) 00:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose...I don't think there is serious Movement per se in the same manner as there is/was a Feminist Movement, but the article is clearly about the Movement, and much less about the rights in and of themselves. I can't see how the article can be about Men's rights without mainly focusing on the movement itself.--MONGO 02:37, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I am leaning toward agreeing with your point. But I think the question is what is the best title for the current article. It seems to me that the better name for the current content of the page is the proposed change. SLawsonIII (talk) 00:54, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
The article as it stands right now is half made up of sources that deal with the men's right movement, and half a synthetic hodgepodge of things that people have thrown together. The sources currently in the article that are dealing with any coherent topic are dealing with the men's rights movement, and not men's rights. This presents significant problems if the article is renamed men's rights, and also, by the first sentence of the articletitle policy, suggests that men's rights movement is in fact the appropriate name for the content. Kevin Gorman (talk) 02:19, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
The suggestion of making two articles is still dependent on finding sources about "men's rights" where those rights are not actually cited in the sources as being the claims of the MRM movement. The challenge keeps getting put out there; where are the sources to write "men's rights" article apart from the MRM, and based on them what is its scope? Slp1 (talk) 02:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Whether a subject is "notable" or not does not depend on reliable sources. The absence of good sources in itself can be significant, and possibly even lead to someone in the future either finding or writing good sources as gaps in existing knowledge become more defined. An article that is today only a stub might provide a user with needed information, and later grow to good or even Featured Article status. (I had the experience of creating an article using only low-quality sources, only to have a high-quality news source publish something more usable within 6 months, and someone on Facebook point me to even more sources.)
I also agree that JasonMacker's version as I saw it in a user space a few days ago is quite superior to the previous version. I don't know if that is the version now online, but if it is not, it should be.
Neotarf (talk) 12:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree that if someone wants to start a Men's movement article let them do it. Robert Bly, for example was involved in something like that years ago. And, as already mentioned but can not be said enough, the keys to any article is references, sources, verifiability and . ..... no blogs, please. Carptrash (talk) 14:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Whooops. 2012 is the year of change. but this article seems to be about the movement, so change would seem to me to be misapplied here. If someone can pull off another "Men's rights" article, given that it needs to not be about the movement and will need good sources, then okay. Start a new article. I see not reason to change the title of this article. Carptrash (talk) 15:33, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
See my note at the top about the changes made to the article following the rename.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:39, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Is there material in the history of the newly renamed "Men's rights movement" article that would need to be migrated into a "Men's rights" article? Neotarf (talk) 00:57, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Though I had already commented here, I hadn't !voted, and wanted to lay out why a move back would be inappropriate in more detail.
95% of reliable sources and 100% of high quality reliable sources talk about the issues involved this article in terms of the 'men right's movement,' not as 'men's rights'. A majority of sources used in this article in the version before my changes to adapt it for a new name were either specifically about the men's rights movement or about the general men's movement - some of these sources gave huge amounts of analysis about the MRM, some of them were simply used for things like citing the opinions of men's rights activists. A significant number of sources were not focused on men's rights or the men's rights movement, but were used as citations for specific factual information. A smaller number of sources discussed specific perceived violations of particular rights of men, but except for sources inside the MRM all of these sources were very narrowly focused. Absolutely no sources whatsoever included in the pre-move version of the article discussed 'men's rights' as a coherent topic. (Beyond that, my research has turned up absolutely no high quality reliable sources that discuss 'men's rights' as a coherent topic.)
By WP:ARTICLETITLE, the eventual name of the article should be decided by what English language sources most commonly refer to the content of the article as. Looking at all sources that have been included in this article, and looking at all other sources I can find, it is apparent that English language sources that deal with this content as a coherent topic overwhelmingly deal with it as the 'men's rights movement' (or for some of the content, the 'views of the men's rights movement' and not as 'men's rights.' Since most English language sources deal with the content of this article in the context of the men's rights movement, by our governing title policy, that's the appropriate title. I'm not opposed to the creation of a separate 'men's rights' article if sufficient sources exist to establish the notability of it as an independent topic, but so far I haven't found sufficient sources, and no one else has either. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - As soon as there are reliable 3rd party sources outside of the men's rights movement that are discussing "men's rights", we can have an article for that. Otherwise, such an article would have inherent POV sourcing issues (as we've covered numerous times in previous discussions). Kaldari (talk) 02:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Support Simply by arguing against the issues in men's right based on personal opinions (in the earlier move) does not invalidate the subject. Based on consistency with women's rights, it should be on the earlier name. It's just odd that the only rights in the template that have movement after them are men's and father's rights. That's implying a POV on the subject. --Pudeo' 03:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually, it's not just men's and father's rights - the LGBT link in the template links to "LGBT social movements". We normally treat articles (and article titles) in the same way that sources treat them - WP:NPOV doesn't require us to treat articles identically if sources do not treat them identically (and doing so would be a POV problem itself.) If there are substantial differences in how sources treat topics, then differences in title are to be expected. Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:20, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Isn't plant rights for example even more substantially different? But apparently that topic doesn't provocate editors to think it's only a movement. It's clear it's consistent to treat them as rights topics instead of movements, regardless how relevant they are thought to be. --Pudeo' 03:46, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Did "human rights" exist independently before the UN decided to say they did in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Neotarf (talk) 12:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Oh, wait, Human rights exists independently of Human Rights Watch. Neotarf (talk) 12:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: there are a number of WAXy points being made in response to oppose comments above: please refrain from saying "what about "x"..." this kind of argument isn't helpful.
    On the substantive matter of the title change this article's scope is the movement not the rights themselves. There the current title is inline with WP:TITLE, WP:PRECISE and WP:V The 3rd party, scholarly or news articles used here talk about the movement, its views, its activism etc.
    While I understand TDA's concern that the father's rights and/or masculism articles could be confused with this page the movement describing itself as the MRM (men's rights movement) (with MRAs - men's rights activists) is the name used in sources and by the movement itself. Any confusion can be solved via Template:Distinguish and/or a dis-ambig page at Men's rights as per WP:DISAMBIG. However IMO there is an equally strong argument that until proper reliable sources exist on the issue of gender specific rights for men as advocated for by this movement that the page Men's rights should redirect here. Whether that page should be a redirect or disambig page needs its own RFC--Cailil talk 17:54, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Despite multiple requests for reliable sources showing that there is a coherent topic "men's rights" (in the post 1970s Western definition of the term) independent of the men's rights movement, none have been produced. Having made multiple searches myself, I know that this is because cannot be found. As has been said above, sources dealing with the content of this article do so in the context of the men's rights movement.
The nutshell version of WP:ARTICLE TITLES says that "Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources". "Men's rights movement" complies with all of these requirements (as well as the WP:CRITERIA). "Men's rights" as a title do not, as it is an ambiguous. As has been pointed out elsewhere on this page, historically this term has been used where we would now use "human rights" or perhaps "civil rights".(see [17] [18] for examples. More importantly in a global encyclopedia, in most non-First world countries the term "men's rights" has a very different meaning that the topic of this article. For example, and as also listed below, consider the following very easily found examples of scholarly sources of the term;
  • e.g. "The men's rights over their women were as their rights over any property" [19];
  • "The [Malaysian] Sisters have also responded vigorously to the claims that men's rights to beat their wives and to polygamy are Allah-given injunctions" [20];
  • "In many cases, such interpretations draw on the relevant traditional [Nigerian] base to affirm men's rights over women"[21];
  • "Throughout the [African] continent women are demanding to be heard, organising, questioning men's rights over them" [22] etc etc.
  • Oppose. The article seems to be about movements or organisations, and not a general study of rights. At least it seems to be, from the top, becoming less so further down when it turns to listing specific rights. The article needs tightening up, focusing on coverage of the movements/organisations. The listing of individual rights seems to be OR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 15:58, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The men's rights movement is a notable topic and it appears that this is the page we will use to present it (even if it started out with, or evolved to have, a different purpose). We should use another page to discuss Men's rights which I think is more general and covers ground including father's rights, male spousal rights, affirmative action, the MRM, etc. My only reservation/suggestion/concern is that editors here determine and remain clear as to the boundaries of MRM. Jojalozzo 22:08, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Comment I would propose a disambiguation page titled something like "Men's issues". As an example, here is the one for "Civil rights": Civil rights (disambiguation) Can anyone list the men's topics that already exist and give short descriptions? I am assuming there will be a separate "Men's rights" page. It must be notable, since there has been so much controversy over it. Neotarf (talk) 00:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC]
  • Question - I am trying to understand the subject a little better so I can participate intelligently here. Google ngram viewer shows many more hits in books for "men's rights" than it does for "men's rights movement" and there are many hits for "men's rights" starting in 1800 (the earliest date of the database) almost no hits for "men's rights movement" until the late 1980's. A Google search results in about 4.2k hits for "men's rights movement" and about 47k hits for "men's rights". Why is that? Jojalozzo 04:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Many references to "men's rights", especially in historical works, dealt with human rights and obligations in general, rather than the sort of stuff that has always been the primary content of this article. This is because English tends to default to masculine pronouns when referring to something of unspecified gender or when referring to a group of mixed gender. To take an example from the first page of a googlebooks search for men's rights, this 1893 book was subtitled "Men's rights and duties as they live together in the state and in society." Looking through its table of contents - it mostly talks about how people should live society, and doesn't appear to have anything at all to do with male-specific rights. You'll find this to be the case with many sources. In my research (and as far as I know in the research of the other long-time editors to this page,) I've been unable to find any high quality sources that deal with men's rights in the sense discussed in this article as a coherent topic that are not discussing it in the context of the men's rights movement. There are some unaffiliated sources that discuss male rights as a coherent topic, but they tend to be things like the rights of males in ancient greece which is not the type of content this article has included. (It's possible that all of the active editors of this page have missed some important sources that would allow the article to reasonably stay at men's rights, and if so, if they're presented, I'm definitely open to changing my opinion.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:42, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I have looked at the some of the sources for this article and find mention of "men's rights movement" in a few sources but "men's rights" is more common. I find the context for "men's rights" is more often described as "men's movement" or "father's rights movement" rather than "men's rights movement". Assuming the argument for using "Men's rights movement" for the title is WP:COMMONNAME, i.e. what is most common in our sources, I think we have a burden to demonstrate that the actual term "men's rights movement" is used in those sources to specify the context for discussion of men's rights, to ensure we are not engaging in synthesis by interpreting various men's rights groups as the "men's rights movement". Jojalozzo 05:43, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
You are right that there is a diversity in how it is referred to, especially in news coverage and popular press stuff - "men's rights groups", "men's rights advocacy," and a couple other permutations are all common. In all high quality academic sources and most of the more comprehensive nonacademic RS's, the type of content discussed in this article is always labelled as the "men's rights movement" - that is to say the types of groups talked about and types of positions quoted are described as being part of a larger "men's rights movement." I don't have time to write the reply you deserve tonight, but I'll do so tomorrow. If you would like to do some more background research before I have a chance to reply again, I would suggest taking a look at the chapter about the men's rights movement in "Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements" by Michael Messner, or the chapter called "Men's Rights: the Shadow Side of the Men's Movement" in Judith Newton's book "From Panthers to Promise Keepers." I'll reply in more detail later, including an explicit source-backed reason why I think this article should be called "Men's rights movement" or potentially and less favorably something like "Men's rights activism," but definitely not just "Men's rights." Thanks - a lot - for the nature of your question. Kevin Gorman (talk) 06:36, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't think the argument actually is WP:COMMONNAME. The question is whether there is actually an independent, notable, topic of "men's rights" (in the post 1960s-1970s Western definition of the word) that is separate from the men's rights movement/groups/activists/etc - the last word varies). To date nobody has even produced reliable sources to show that they are separate, which is quite unlike the situation with Human Rights and Human Rights Watch (mentioned above) which individually meet WP's notability for separate articles.
I do, however, think that WP:TITLE including WP:COMMONNAME has some important advice about being precise and avoiding ambiguity. As noted above, "men's rights" had a very different meaning in the West until about 40 years ago, and still does in many parts of the world. Consider, for example, what the term "men's rights" means in countries like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh etc.see[23][24][25] An article at the title "Men's Rights" would have a much broader scope; a history section about "men's rights" would need to cover the fact that until quite recently, in most parts of the world men actually had most of the rights; in a global encyclopedia such as WP, we would need to cover men's rights in other parts of the world than the West. If editors want the article about to be solely about the men's rights that concern MRAs -and we do need one - then actually the title "Men's Rights Movement" is to be preferred, as it is by far the clearest title, least ambiguous title to cover this material.--Slp1 (talk) 15:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I think Slp explained what I've been shooting for in a clearer fashion than I would've. The content of this article as it stands (and as it has always stood) has been about a post-1973ish primarily Western phenomenon. The most common name used to refer to the content of this article (which is focused on a post-1973ish primarily Western phenomenon) is the 'men's rights movement,' although some sources use 'men's rights activism', 'men's rights groups', or similar titles. MRM is especially common in high quality academic sources compared to the other two - 'Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements,' 'From Panthers to Promise Keepers,' ' Equality with a Vengeance: Men's Rights Groups, Battered Women, and Antifeminist Backlash', and 'International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities' are all examples of books written by academics published by reputable presses who treat the phenomenon that has been the primary topic of this article as the 'men's rights movement.' I think the fact that a preponderance of high quality sources treat the content of this article as the 'men's rights movement,' that no high quality source treats the general content in this article as 'men's rights', and that 'men's rights' by itself would reasonably include things such as what slp hit on all combine to make 'men's rights movement' the best title for this article. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:21, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I note that none of those titles use the term and I'm interested in how the term is used and how other terms (men's rights, men's groups, father's rights movement, men's movement, etc.) are used in the sources you list. Has anyone done an analysis of that sort yet? Jojalozzo 20:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't have time to do an in-depth analysis of all of them at this time (the timing of this RM isn't ideal for me.) A short version: sources generally treat the 'men's rights movement' as a subset of a broader 'men's movement,' and a spinoff of the 'men's liberation movement.' Most sources either treat the 'father's rights movement' as a spin-off of the 'men's rights movement,' or as a closely related but different movement. 'Men's rights advocate' or 'men's rights activist' is generally used to refer to an adherent of or participant in the 'men's rights movement'. 'Men's groups' is a nonspecific term. Most generally, it refers to groups that are member of the broad 'men's movement' - this can include groups of mythopoetics, promise keepers, pro-feminists, etc, but normally context makes it more clear what is being referred to. 'Men's rights' is never used in sources outside of the movement as a standalone topic (akin to human rights,) but is used to describe things related to the movement, such as the views of the movement. Here's a quote from Michael Messner, writing in 'Politics of Masculinities,' in a section entitled "The Men's Rights Movement"

Whereas men's liberationists gave equal weight to the limitations and oppression imposed on women and men and viewed feminism as a movement for human liberation, men's rights advocates emphasized far more the costs of masculinity to men. Early men's rights texts, such as Herb Goldberg's 1976 The Hazards of Being Male were similar to early men's liberationist texts in that tended to argue that both men and women have been hurt by sexism, but the men's rights texts differed in that they tended to place much greater emphasis on the costs of masculinity than on the problems faced by women.

This quote is characteristic of the way that this group of concepts is approached in academic sources. Messner labels the entire thing the 'men's rights movement,' labels individual participants in the movement as 'men's rights activists,' and uses 'men's rights' to mean 'associated with the men's rights movement.' These generalizations hold true in non-academic sources as well, but non-academic sources (especially news reports and the like) sometimes use un-nuanced approaches. We should follow the approach used by the greatest number of high quality sources, and this is fairly universal.
I hope that this post answers some of your questions. If it does, please let me know. If it doesn't, or if you would simply like more quotations from reliable sources demonstrating that this is the most common usage, please let me know. I'll accommodate your requests to the greatest extent possible in the time I have available. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:43, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I wrote most of the following earlier, but then got called away before I finished. It is scarily similar to Kevin's post (which either means that great minds think alike or that fools seldom differ!). My version has a few sources so that editors can check out the scholarly sources for themselves.
The Men's movement is the overarching term, including very diverse grouping under them, including the Mythopoetic movement, Promise Keepers Men's rights movement etc. See the table of contents of the Messner Men's Movement book.[26]. Men's movement is thus not a suitable title for this article. Men's groups could refer to wide variety of topics, including groups used as a format within several components of the men's movement such as the Mythopoetic movement[27] or another, the Promise Keepers[28]. This is not a suitable title either. Father's rights movement's interests overlaps somewhat with those of the men's rights movement, but the FRM focusses mainly on divorce and custody issues. This scholarly source explicitly states that the initial FR groups formed "as part of the Men's Rights Movement" "The Men's Rights Movement" is the name of the relevant chapter in Messner's book.[29]. "Men's Rights Movement" is the title of the chapter in the Men & Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia. Slp1 (talk) 03:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I was fortunate enough to find a sample of Flood's International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities on Google books. Kenneth Clatterbaugh's article on Masculinity Politics (I have access to pages 395-397 of this article, all but the first page I think) describes "four major movements": 1) early pro-feminist men's movement (60's onward), 2) men's rights movement (70's onward), 3) Bly-inspired men's movement (90's onward), and 4) Promise Keepers (90's onward). He identifies the "men's rights movement" as also pro-feminist (and not conservative) but with a view of men as damaged, like women, by gender roles and arguing against feminists and earlier pro-feminist men identifying men as oppressors. He says the men's rights movement was joined later by traditional conservatives and the father's rights movement (not a spinoff of the men's rights movement nor one of the four major movements) and he lumps these together in a 1980's "men's rights coalition". He distinguishes Bly's 1990's "mythopoetic men's movement" from "men's rights advocates" and clearly links men's rights to the men's rights movement, distinct from Bly's men's movement, and aligned politically with (though distinct from) father's rights and conservative men's groups. Likewise, he does not connect Promise Keepers with men's rights. Jojalozzo 03:24, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
There is no support from Clatterbaugh for including groups in the men's right movement beyond the pro-feminist men's rights in the west. Father's rights groups, SIFF, American Coalition of Fathers and Children, Fathers 4 Justice, National Coalition for Men, and the Save Indian Family Foundation do not fit his use of the term since from what I can tell they do not have a pro-feminist basis. This would suggest the article use a broader term (e.g. "men's rights groups") or narrow the content. Jojalozzo 03:39, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Clatterbaugh doesn't say that the men's rights movement consists of profeminist groups, I think you misread it. On page 395 he says "However, profeminist men soon encountered another political conflict wih an emerging movement that called itself the men's rights movement...". He's not saying the MRM is profeminist, he's saying they have conflicts with profeminists. Towards the end of the page, he also talks about in explicit detail the conflict between the pro-feminist men's movement and the men's rights movement. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I've reread the Clatterbaugh article and think that you may have misunderstood it a bit. On [30] it actually talks about how the pro-feminist men got into conflict with the men's rights movement, and that the MRM "attacked feminists and pro-feminists". That goes along with all the other sources that I've read, which state that the "men's rights movement" is typically quite anti-feminist. Try reading these links to googlebooks fore more information on the topic [31][32]. Let me know if you have trouble and I will type out some relevant sections for you. --Slp1 (talk) 04:02, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I did misread it. He says the men's rights movement agreed with feminism about the harm of gender roles but was aggressively anti-feminist due to feminism's view of men as oppressors. Nonetheless, I think he sees this relationship to feminism as central to the men's rights movement and he does not include fathers' rights groups in the men's rights movement. Jojalozzo 05:48, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Clatterbaugh and most other authors do consider anti-feminism to be a primary characteristic of the men's rights movement. Clatterbaugh treats the father's rights movement as completely distinct from the men's rights movement. Messner (in 'Politics of Masculinities') treats the father's rights movement as a closely related offshoot of the men's rights movement, but also notes that most groups that are part of the men's rights movement at least in part also advocate for 'father's rights'. Most other authors do something similar to one or the other of them. We do already have an article, father's rights movement. In general, I think information about groups that self-identify or are identified in reliable sources as men's rights groups should be included in men's rights movement, and groups that do not self identify as men's rights groups and are not identified as such in reliable sources should be included in father's rights movement. Currently, some of the content in this article is clearly more related to the father's rights movement than to the men's rights movement - I think content specifically related to the men's rights movement should be moved to that page. This is a productive conversation that will be useful in editing the page once the RM is settled. Given the way that all of this is treated in reliable sources, I think the best path forward would be to keep this page at it's current name and move content to other articles as appropriate - with any of the sources I've seen so far, renaming the article back to just 'men's rights' wouldn't be practical. Kevin Gorman (talk) 18:38, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I think allowing groups to define themselves as members of the men's rights movement is problematic if we're using an academic/expert definition for the term. Similarly, just because a group advocates for men's rights doesn't mean they are part of the "men's rights movement" as it is defined here. Likewise, I do not think that the Indian men's rights groups should be considered part of this topic since they are neither pro- nor anti-feminist. Jojalozzo 21:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I think that using a group's self-identification as part of the MRM would be acceptable under the exemptions at WP:BLPSPS - claiming to be part of a movement isn't unduly self-serving. I would consider SIFF as part of the men's rights movement since they self-identify as such. They also self-identify in various places as being anti-feminist. You are right that there may be (is) some content on this page that doesn't belong on it, and which should be excised and moved to other more appropriate pages. I've been holding off on doing so until the RM ends. Most of the notable groups discussed in this article are explicitly ly labeled, either by themselves or in high quality sources, as members of the men's rights movement. As an example, the national coalition of free men is explicitly labelled by themselves, Messner, Newton, and I'm pretty sure Kimmel and Flood as part of the men's rights movement. There are a few groups that should really be talked about at Father's rights movement rather than here - like F4J - which can be dealt with by just moving those pieces of content there. (I would've done it myself already, but am avoiding major edits until the close of this RM so no one accuses me of impropriety.) But the content issues we are discussing in this post don't address the naming issue; no reliable sources discuss in depth 'men's rights,' and it's thus literally impossible to write a decent nonsynthetic article about it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
BLP policy does not apply to a non BLP article (see WP:BLPGROUP). If we justify the title move and define the scope of the article based on expert/academic sources, then we cannot turn around and use weaker, less reliable sources to determine what content fits within that scope. If we are going to allow the topic to be defined by less reliable sources that do not adhere to a clear definition of the topic, then we need a title (like "Men's rights") that allows for that broader scope. Jojalozzo 04:51, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
WP:SELFPUB is an equivalent policy that isn't BLP-only. I cited the wrong one, but they are functionally equivalent. We should always use the highest quality sources possible. For broad level questions, we have high quality academic sources available. For narrower sources - like the identification of a certain group - we may only have SPS. And without any sources talking about 'men's rights' as a coherent topic, we can't use it as an article name without violating WP:SYNTH. If no sources treat 'men's rights' as a coherent topic, then we cannot have 'men's rights' as an article topic. Kevin Gorman (talk) 04:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
As I understand it, self published sources are not considered reliable (except perhaps in articles about the author) unless backed up by other reliable sources, which we have defined here is an expert/academic sources. We can use self-published sources to support a statement that a group considers itself part of the men's rights movement but we cannot use it to include that group in the movement without corroboration by a reliable source. Jojalozzo 05:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
WP:SELFPUB says claims in literature published by a group can be accepted unless there is a reason to doubt them. It doesn't say we need to disclaim them. If the Save Indian Family Foundation labels themselves as part of the men's rights movement, then that's good enough for us to label them part of such, since it's not an exceptional claim. We should use the highest quality sources available for articles - that doesn't always mean an academic source, although an academic source is normally preferable if one is available. But this is all tangential to the main point anyway: you're making, at best, an argument for excising certain content from this article, not for naming it 'men's rights.' Unless there are sources that talk about the content of this article simply as 'men's rights,' then 'men's rights' is an inappropriate name. We as Wikipedians aren't in the business of making up names. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Flood's encyclopedia has an article titled "Men's rights" (pg 430) which appears to cover much if not all of the ground covered here including father's rights organizations and international men's rights groups. I don't have access to the complete text yet (I've got it ordered on interlibrary loan) but that appears to be strong support for using "men's rights" given the article content, even more for the version of the article when the name was changed from "Men's rights". Jojalozzo 14:23, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not exactly sure why Flood's book would trump other, a similar encyclopedia which uses the term "Men's rights movement" such as Kimmel's Men & Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia , since the material they discuss covers much of the same ground. I do have access to the text and as you yourself note, the topic of Clatterbaugh's article is not actually about "men's rights" per se but the history and evolution of the men's rights movement/groups and its various strands. Here are the first 3 sentences "The concept of men's rights generally embraces various points of view that are overwhelmingly hostile to feminism or pro-feminism. As Astrachan (1986) and Clatterbaugh (1997) argue, these points of view range from groups of men who began as feminists, rejected traditional masculinity, and came to find fault with the women's movement to groups of men whose whole reason for being is to attack feminism and to shore up traditional masculinity to groups of men (father's rights groups) who focus narrowly on question of divorce and custody. The story of how these groups evolved and are evolving and how the various ideologies bleed into one another is one of the most complex and political interesting stories about the contemporary men's movements." Clatterbaugh goes on to describe this very history, ending with ""Thus the key goals of the men's rights movement- namely antifeminism and respect for men - were better achieved by conservative ideologies that transformed with this movement or in some cases simply superceded it." I don't think that this is strong support for the title "men's rights" at all. Slp1 (talk) 15:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
That last sentence is clearly discussing men's rights in a broader context than the men's rights movement. The whole quote describes how men's rights have bled into and transformed other movements (conservatives and father's rights). Jojalozzo 23:50, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm awfully sorry. It seems an extra word crept into my transcription of the last sentence that changed the meaning of the sentence. I've struck it out now. It really doesn't say what you thought it did, but that was my fault completely. Slp1 (talk) 00:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
No problem, I appreciate your taking the time to transcribe the quotation. I am waiting for interlibrary loan of this book and Messner's also. Nonetheless, "The concept of men's rights generally embraces various points of view that are overwhelmingly hostile to feminism or pro-feminism" not just the men's rights movement perspective. The paragraph (including the last sentence, still somewhat, and probably the rest of the article) takes a broader view of the concept of men's rights and its impact. This appears to be an example of the term "men's rights" used in a context beyond the men's rights movement. I'll let you know less equivocally what I think about it when I get my own copy. Jojalozzo 00:35, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
By all means wait till you get the book. But as you will find, the article is actually about the history of the men's rights movement/groups, how they disagreed with other men's movement groups, "seized" ideas from other groups etc, and influenced other groups too, of course. The topic here is the men's rights movement. By way of showing this, it is perhaps worth pointing out that the term "Men's rights" or "rights of men" is mentioned alone only twice in the whole article. In contrast, there are 8 references to "men's rights groups", 2 to the "men's rights movement", 5 to "this/these groups/movements" (referring the Men's Rights groupings), 4 to "groups of men" or "men's groups" (also referring to men's rights groupings), 1 to "men's rights associations", 2 to "men's rights proponents/advocates", and 4 to "men's rights perspective/ideologies". In summary, there is no coherent discourse about the subject of "men's rights" per se. Remember too that an equally relevant article in the Messner encyclopedia, which covers pretty much exactly the same content, is titled "Men's rights movement". We need to look at the actual content here.--Slp1 (talk) 01:29, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Jojalozzo was right, "men's rights" is much more used. Let's see Google Scholar. It only has scholarly sources, not 19th Century books like Google Books, and in Scholar we can determine our own time period. Let's choose 1960-2012:

So it is very weird if Slp1 and Kevin Gorman claim that the scholarly opinion somehow is for "men's rights movement". --Pudeo' 02:06, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Please provide more concrete evidence than just ghits. "Men's rights" is a phrase that appears in many contexts, many of which are not related to the content of this article. Please provide specific high quality sources that treat "men's rights" as a coherent topic outside of the MRM. Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:00, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Of course it is used much more! Googlesearches are totally useless metrics for decisions like this. Why? Because your search for "men's rights" will find not only "men's rights" but "men's rights movements", "men's rights activists", "men's rights groups", "men's rights advocacy", "men's rights website" "men's rights demonstrations" "men's rights members/supporters" etc etc. You actually have to look at the sources to see how they are used. If you do, you will also find, as I have pointed out above, that the term "men's rights" is used in many scholarly articles to refer to a different meaning of "men's rights" than the one this article uses: the rights that men in some countries have at the expense of women.
  • e.g. "The men's rights over their women were as their rights over any property" [33];
  • "The [Malaysian] Sisters have also responded vigorously to the claims that men's rights to beat their wives and to polygamy are Allah-given injunctions" [34];
  • "In many cases, such interpretations draw on the relevant traditional [Nigerian] base to affirm men's rights over women"[35];
  • "Throughout the continent [Africa] women are demanding to be heard, organising, questioning men's rights over them" [36] etc etc.
This is not the kind of "men's rights" this article describes, and obviously shouldn't be included in any googlesearch count. But as an aside, they are the sort of scholarly sources that would need to be reflected if the page is moved back to "men's rights", and a very good reason why those who want article giving a clear summary of the "men's rights" that Western activists work for should be opposing this move. Slp1 (talk) 03:03, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
If the article was about men's ownership of women in 3rd world countries, I think we would have plenty of reliable sources. The problem is the men's rights movement idea of "men's rights" is very different and not reflected in 3rd party reliable sources. I actually spent a good deal of time trying to find any 3rd party references about "men's rights" that were at all related to the men's rights movement idea of men's rights. The only overlap I could find after extensive searching was a small amount of material on circumcision. It might make sense to have to 2 different articles at some point, but the current material is much more appropriate under "men's rights movement". Kaldari (talk) 03:52, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Aren't most of womens' rights also very much tied to the development of the feminist movements? I think editors should be careful with moving the article to a more movement and US-centric one. For example, I live in a country where every male is conscripted, and JasonMacker's article proposal removed the idea that it's among men's rights not to be conscripted. Then it would only detail the US men's right movement and US pre-1971 draft. I'm not accussing anyone of bias, but it's very easy to see this as a political question too: it doesn't fit in the feminist idea that men might be discriminated in some things in a culture while that's what the opposing masculist side says. Thus, I believe no POV choice should be made in the article titles between men's rights movement and womens' rights. --Pudeo' 01:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
To quote from WP:NPOV: "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." So far I - and many other people who have looked - have failed to find sources that treat 'men's rights' as a coherent topic. Wikipedia's neutrality doesn't exist in some sort of weird vacuum where all topics are treated equally - we treat topics in the manner they are treated by sources. Are you aware of reliable sources that treat men's rights as a coherent topic? (There are certainly a lot that treat womens' rights, which you keep mentioning, as a coherent topic. If you have such sources, please bring them forth. If such sources don't exist, then it would be, by Wikipedias standards, a POV problem to not treat the articles differently. Kevin Gorman (talk) 03:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
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