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Criticism section is incredibly verbose.

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"Paul Joosse has argued that while classic moral panic theory styled itself as being part of the "sceptical revolution" that sought to critique structural functionalism, it is actually very similar to Émile Durkheim's depiction of how the collective conscience is strengthened through its reactions to deviance (in Cohen's case, for example, "right-thinkers" use folk devils to strengthen societal orthodoxies). In his analysis of Donald Trump's victory in the 2016 United States presidential election, Joosse reimagined moral panic in Weberian terms, showing how charismatic moral entrepreneurs can at once deride folk devils in the traditional sense while avoiding the conservative moral recapitulation that classic moral panic theory predicts.[117] Another criticism is that of disproportionality: there is no way to measure what a proportionate reaction should be to a specific action.[118]"

I realize that academic language isn't entirely avoidable, but keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia, not a journal, and the average reader is not going to come away with an understanding of what is being discussed here. 2603:7081:1603:A300:8A62:52AD:A542:142B (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Grooming" moral panic removed

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Anyone know why? It seemed properly cited and everything. It's probably one of the most important moral panics in recent years, coming from a trans woman. 76.146.231.200 (talk) 22:38, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Based on this talk page contribution from the user who removed it, I suspect anti-transgender bias on their part: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics&diff=prev&oldid=1130916074

In any case, I think that edit should be reverted and that section reinstated. The same user also deleted the Human Trafficking section, and a later edit restored that.

87.242.229.228 (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Existence of transgender people

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I will just echo the comment above about "Grooming", and suggest that this article definitely needs a section on the current moral panic around the existence of trangender people. 50.123.66.70 (talk) 00:55, 30 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the removal of the Grooming section may have been motivated by anti-trans bias on the part of the editor who removed it. This is one of their talk-page contributions: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Feminist_views_on_transgender_topics&diff=prev&oldid=1130916074

I also believe that the deleted section needs to be undeleted, and note that at least one other section on this page was previously restored after being deleted by the same user. 87.242.229.228 (talk) 15:52, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose using the term "terf" to refer to gender-critical feminists. That is not "anti-trans bias", it is anti-rudeness bias. As for these two sections, there is already an established protocol: you need real scholarly articles, not articles in The Daily Beast. Also, you need articles that establish it as a Stanley Cohen moral panic, not articles that simply use the two words "moral panic". There is an established literature on the sociological term "moral panic" and we hew to that so that we can avoid this article being clogged with cruft. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:49, 1 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not all of the references for other current moral panics are scholarly articles and I can't see any such "established protocol" beyond WP:RS. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it true. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 17:09, 3 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you consult the talk page archive, you'll see the protocol for this topic has been to only accept "moral panic" examples that meet the sociological definition of moral panic. The reason for this is to avoid the addition of endless "examples" which aren't sociological moral panics, but for which some person on some news site somewhere has used the term "moral panic".
We need some minimal standards, or else the article explodes with hundreds of examples. Please look thru the article history.
The most sensible standard for adding an example to this article is for it to meet the sociological definition of "moral panic" as set out in this article itself. Please read the sections "History and Development", "Cohen's model of Moral Panic", and "Goode and ben-Yehuda's attributional model". This is a well-developed field of study in sociology
Any addition of a "moral panic example" where the sources do not establish it as a moral panic either by Cohen's framework or by Goode & ben-Yehuda's framework is effectively WP:SYNTH. They don't get to be added just because they use the words.
Some authors in some places like the Atlantic might write long-form articles where they explain the sociological concept and then make the case for why something meets the definition; that can be a provisional source for an addition, for sure. But generally sociological moral panics are written about in social science journals, or in books.
If you think this section should be kept, please either add sources that meet the low bar establishing it as a sociological moral manic, or give a valid and informative explanation as to why the long-standing policy should be changed to allow every single pop-culture article that uses the words "moral panic" to get its own section added. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:07, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please provide a courtesy link to the indication of the protocol in the talk page archives? I actually agree that requiring academic standards is a good thing that should be done more but it'd be good to be able to observe the past consensus directly. Simonm223 (talk) 17:34, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are certainly correct, however, that it is a relatively low bar to clear. This paper took me literally 15 seconds to find.
Transphobic discourse and moral panic convergence: A content analysis of my hate mail. Walker, Allyn: Criminology. Nov2023, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p994-1021. 28p. Simonm223 (talk) 17:37, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And I understand that the methodology in the first one may bother people a little bit - it's not a standard methodology though it is quite thoroughly documented and the paper passed through peer review - so here's literally the very next link in Wikipedia library: President Trump's transgender moral panic. By: Pepin-Neff, Christopher, Cohen, Aaron, Policy Studies, 01442872, Sep-Nov 2021, Vol. 42, Issue 5/6
Wikipedia library contains 571 peer reviewed papers published between 2005 and 2025 on the keywords "transphobia moral panic" Simonm223 (talk) 17:41, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Notwithstanding the question of which specific language is rude - I would generally concur, based on this, that it is reasonable to expect inclusions on this topic to meet an academic definition of Moral Panic of some sort. I would still be interested to see the prior local consensus. Simonm223 (talk) 17:42, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Read archive 3. Search for comments from users Koncorde and Aquillion. Read thru the comments archive generally, there's not a lot there. I didn't make this up myself, it was an editors' consensus for a long time.
And the section is not "transphobia moral panic", it is called "LGBT grooming conspiracy theory".
Now, the abstract for "President Trump's transgender moral panic" suggests the article perfectly fits the structure of a sociological moral panic analysis. A pdf is available via google scholar, and a quick look thru the intro confirms this. So awesome! You have demonstrated that this section can be rewritten in a way that meets this article's standards. Feel free to rescue the section, get rid of the non-scholarly sources, add scholarly sources, and clean it up. Please just keep it a similar length to the other "example" sections. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also maybe reword the section header. Seems the section would be specifically about a transgender moral panic, not on a moral panic about LGBT grooming. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:02, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. I am running out of Wikipedia time today but I'll add it to my to-do list. If anyone else can beat me to the punch feel free. Simonm223 (talk) 18:04, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can confirm re: needing academic sources -- it's somewhere in the talk page archives. IIRC one dispute came up regarding #metoo (the idea that sexual harassment is a moral panic). Regardless, as highlighted above there are plenty of academic sources to substantiate a "grooming" section, or perhaps something broader. Here's one by Alice Marwick: Child-Sacrificing Drag Queens. Here's a chapter in an academic book: Online Harms Moral Panics, the Last Five Years. Here's an article in Criminology: Transphobic discourse and moral panic convergence... — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. I pull most of my sources off Wikipedia Library which we can't link to directly but that article was a good read. Another good one I just read was TERF wars: An introduction. By: Pearce, Ruth, Erikainen, Sonja, Vincent, Ben, Sociological Review, 00380261, Jul2020, Vol. 68, Issue 4 Simonm223 (talk) 17:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I did find a brief discussion here which reinforced that editors wanted to see fewer opinion pieces from periodicals and more peer reviewed work: [1] Simonm223 (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Responding to a ping on my talk page. As per prior discussions, the issue is that everyone (particularly amidst recurring culture wars) has started using the phrase "moral panic" to describe stuff that is just controversial, a journalistic or author shorthand for "this thing seems contentious and people are framing it as moral / immoral", or often just a conspiracy, which didn't (often) meet the standard for inclusion. So instead we have cautiously erred on requiring something of actual significance and weight because any true moral panic will have had actual coverage in suitable scientific journals because of the very nature of the subject. I don't have any objection to including recent examples of such a moral panic but we should be clear about what the moral panic is about which is what good sources will fully establish, where light touch journalism often frame it in the terms of the promoter of the panic. I say this because it's very easy to write a paragraph describing #METOO as a "moral panic" against men because that is the accusation thrown at it[2] but the real "moral panic" was the reflexive attempt to reframe it by bad actors. Koncorde (talk) 23:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has been explained why the section was deleted, and no action to fix the section has been taken yet. I strongly suspect this is all bad-faith and WP:POINT, especially from the two IPs that started this, so I'll be re-deleting the section in approximately a week unless improvement is made. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:05, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no consensus to delete the section, there are many users (not just the 2 IPs) who have argued for its inclusion and there is no burning urgency for the section to be amended just because you don't like it. Please do not accuse multiple edits of bad faith or WP:POINT disruption just because not everybody is running to edit a section that you personally feel is incorrect.
If you feel it urgently needs editing then it would be more constructive for you to make specific suggestions here than to delete the section again. Given the lack of consensus to delete, some might suggest that repeated edit-warring and deletion by you would be disruptive behaviour, per WP:POINT. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 18:32, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It has already been discussed above that the section, as is, is not acceptable. Will you fix it? Or will you just leave a warning on my page, and accuse someone performing edits to maintain the quality level of this article of being "disruptive"? Fix the section, then it stays. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:47, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is your opinion that the section is not acceptable. There is no consensus to delete it and there is no urgency to amend it; Wikipedia is a work in progress.
Again, if you believe so strongly that it needs urgent amendment then propose some changes here to gain consensus. My priorities (on-wiki or off-) are not defined by other editors who don't like something, nor are anyone else's. I'm sure people will come to work on that section at some point, but we all also have other things in our lives and other areas we are working on. No editor gets to crack a whip and expect other editors to come running. Especially when they lack consensus.
I would also suggest that you read the Contentious topics information more carefully — as the note I left you mentioned, it was not accusing you of any transgressions, merely alerting you that some topics are subject to different rules than the rest of the encyclopædia, as they are areas that are more-frequently disrupted and vandalised. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 16:05, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Leaving up one section that doesn't meet the standard for inclusion (as stated above, by Rhododendrites and Koncorde and myself, who have been maintaining this article for ages) will encourage people to add more sections that don't meet the standard for inclusion, and this article will go back to being a cruftjungle. I am not salting the section, just removing it because it fails standards. Despite the "work in progress" philosophy, Wikipedia has to meet standards now: we don't say "well it'll eventually meet WP:RS, WP:BLP and WP:POV, so leave it up." When the people reverting me (you, and some IPs) decide to fix the section so that it meets standards, it will stay up. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:21, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the "changes I would propose" have already been discussed and agreed upon: use scholarly sources that discuss "moral panic" from the standpoint of Cohen and Goode & ben-Yehuda. It is agreed that scholarly sources are required. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:23, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then how about you draft a section that meets your criteria? I was going to try and get around to it eventually but frankly I'm quite satisfied with what is in the article already and am not overly motivated to operate to your deadline to improve it or see the material unilaterally crossed out because of a local consensus defended by one editor. Simonm223 (talk) 17:32, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not a "local consensus defended by one editor". Read the discussion, read the talk page archives. And you personally being satisfied is not sufficient reason to keep any content: it has to meet standards. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:36, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please describe the wikipedia policy that governs these standards. Simonm223 (talk) 17:42, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The request has been clearly made to include improved sources which I agree with. Removing the content may not be warranted - but removing sources that are not relevant / reliable for this subject matter and either tagging unsupported content, or (ideally) replacing with actual authoritative sources on the subject should be a first step to making sure anything that is included is actually referenced to (which would then support the use of other sources as corroboration from an MSM pov). We currently have an opinion article from Daily Beast (questionable source at the best of times), opinion from forward.com (unknown RS), a feature from fivethirtyeight (not sure what their status is as an RS) where at least they reference someone of actual note "“There is no better moral panic than a moral panic centered on potential harm to children,” said Emily Johnson, a history professor at Ball State University who specializes in U.S. histories of gender and sexuality." but unclear when it was actually said (i.e. if it is even referring to this issue), PolitiFact doesn't use the term at all (RS restricted to statements of facts by candidates when attributed). At the moment, the section is WP:SYNTH'y. Koncorde (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with WP:SYNTH. In fact none of them are WP:RS on the sociological topic of "moral panic". Whilst scholarly articles by sociologists about moral panics can be WP:RS. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The assertion that all the presently used sources are unreliable is not demonstrated. Simonm223 (talk) 18:07, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Daily Beast, forward.com, fivethirtyeight and Politifact are not reliable sources on the sociological topic of moral panics. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:29, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You assert this but this has not been demonstrated. Simonm223 (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And before you rush into arguing about this further I'll point you up to what I originally said today which is that if you have an idea about improving the article with different sources then it behooves you to actually do that - improve it - rather than deleting any mention of trans people just because you personally don't think Forward is reliable enough. Simonm223 (talk) 18:55, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Now look who's "cracking the whip"? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:06, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. I'm just saying that deleting reliably sourced material, and I do contend it is reliably sourced, because you personally want to use better sources, which you have, and then insisting that we can't address the moral panic around trans people, the key example of the moment of a moral panic at all, unless somebody else drafts a section that meets your exacting standards is treading into WP:OWN and WP:POINT territory. Simonm223 (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
These standards aren't "mine".AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Explain how you want it demonstrated. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:08, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus to delete the section. That's not how it works. Look, I linked to three sources above - rather than try to edit war contested content into the article with purely op-eds and popular press articles, take the time you would spend arguing on the talk page and do it better. I agree with inclusion of this subject but come on with the wikilawyering. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:43, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and did it. *resentful glare at those bickering rather than just taking a couple minutes to do it* — Rhododendrites talk \\ 20:03, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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