Talk:Sexual effects of circumcision

POV Tag reasons

There are at least 5 places reasons this article is POV. Jakew (who wrote and owns the article) specifically makes the article is POV pro-circ propaganda because he recently:

• 1. Refused to permit an introduction laying out the pro and con points (reasons circs can help sexuality or hurt sexuality) of view and research.
• 2. Maintains the current intro, which is neither sourced nor accurate.
• 3. Refuses to make the table understandable and relevant. For example, he places emphasis on studies that were not statistically relevant. A couple studies are misrepresented and/or buried.
• 4. Refuses to permit a balanced organized (by reason) summary of the studies. For example elective circ's should be considered separately from medical circs. Likewise, studies of circs on neonates should be separate from circs on adults for medical reasons. Finally, subjective and objective studies should be considered separately.
• 5. Refuses to permit the Sorrell's graph, though it's worthy.

Zinbarg (talk) 01:06, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Zinbarg, you need to explain what's actually POV about the current article. You haven't done this. What you've actually done is listed a number of complaints about me, which I shall not grace with a response. Some of your complaints (eg., the first) explain what you'd like to do, but there's a difference between wanting to change something and the current text violating NPOV. Jakew (talk) 10:29, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Also, you need to use the right tag. {{POV-section}} is for marking individual sections (including the lead section) as POV. {{POV}} is for marking an entire article as POV. Since you've provided insufficient justification for either, I've removed the tag. Jakew (talk) 10:44, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

You Jakew specifically denied my request to provide an introduction because you said it would seem anti circ. The current lead isn't an introduction. It's just one sentence, that isn't referenced, and is probably generally not true. I find general agreement among large groups of circ actors ... both finding that circ helps and others that it hurts sex. Almost none of those arguments are in the article, let alone the lead. I have pointed out several other POV problems in the article (see above), so don't just focus on the lead.Zinbarg (talk) 16:03, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

This is puzzling. I can't think why I would object to including an introduction - would you mind citing my specific comment? Jakew (talk) 17:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I proposed a short balanced (I even offered to leave it POV by limiting to "equal" representation of pro and anti points) introduction, and you responded "I'm afraid that I do not regard that as a good idea. My experience of editing this article is such that I do not believe that NPOV would be served by individual editors rewriting large sections of the article by themselves. Jakew (talk) 21:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)" One need look no further to say it's POV.

In addition to the lead, there's the huge POV problem keeping the sensitivity chart out of the article. Jakew cites undue weight, when it's POV to keep key information out of the article just because it might not be pro circ.

And the misrepresentation of study results discussed above. You are bound by Wiki rules to leave the POV tag.Zinbarg (talk) 23:58, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I see the cause of the misunderstanding. I objected to a particular proposal for an introduction, not the general concept of an introduction. Jakew (talk) 10:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

What type of introduction would you approve? The POV tag should be left because this is only one of several problems, but lets see if we can move forward. I would like you to explain how you think the sensitivity graph is undue wt.Zinbarg (talk) 00:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Jayjg and I have already explained why the including the graph of Sorrells' results would violate WP:UNDUE, at several talk pages, and I really don't see why it's necessary to do so again.

Furthermore, it would not be appropriate to have that discussion in this section. The purpose of a POV tag is to highlight WP:NPOV problems in the current version of an article. It would be highly illogical to argue that the article violates NPOV because it doesn't display a graph showing the results of one of the 41 studies cited.: if failing to display a graph of the results of a study violates NPOV, then failing to display a graph of the results of other studies must also violate NPOV, so including the graph wouldn't even solve the problem. Clearly such an argument would be absurd.

I submit that what you perceive as "POV" has nothing to do with the article, but instead is an objection about other editors. You have made this clear by speculating about my motives: "just because it might not be pro circ". But tags aren't intended as a kind of protest. Jakew (talk) 11:27, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't mix discussions. You and Jayg have discussed the Sorrells chart for Circumcision, and the arguments are more likely to hold there, but certainly not here in Sexual Effects. This section is specifically for info just like that. You cite 41 studies, but how many objective, statistically relevant, and specific to the foreskin (circumcision)? Only one. Sorrell's. And you keep it out! Objective is by defi. neutral, so I call you pro-circ. There is no "undue wt" when that is the topic. The restriction of that info is current POV in this section. There are several other cited POV problems with this section. I was trying to be nice by leaving the tag off while we work on the content.Zinbarg (talk) 18:06, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The arguments are essentially the same: illustrating the results of one study would give it undue weight; the only way to avoid doing so would be to illustrate the results of multiple studies. Jakew (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

They are not the same, because this is the page for sexual effects detail (versus an overview in Circumcision). It's now mostly ramble and without an intro. Sensitivity is a key component of sexuality. You enforce undue weight when leaving it OUT is undue weight! The article is clearly pro-circ POV.Zinbarg (talk) 18:57, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

We don't leave out sensitivity, Zinbarg. Most of the first ten paragraphs are dedicated to discussing that subject. And we cite Sorrells et al. as part of that discussion. Jakew (talk) 21:10, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Unindent. This section rambles and confuses. It's not clear writing. It lacks an intro to help guide. The graph is very clear, easy to understand, objective, factual, informative. Why do you reject including detail? It's neutral information. Why do you even call it undue wt?Zinbarg (talk) 16:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to including detail, as long as detail is provided about all studies. What I object to — and what policy prohibits — is providing large amounts of detail about one study but not others. Doing that gives excessive emphasis (or "undue weight") to that one study, and that's unacceptable. Jakew (talk) 17:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Zinbarg, there's an easy solution to this: Let Jakew do whatever he wants (suggest that loss of nerve tissue INCREASES sensation etc...) and your problem is solved. Anyone who reads this article will immediately see how ridiculous it is and disregard it. Aside from that Jakew might make the simple consolation of adding the POV tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.73.165.8 (talk) 20:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I've also had problems with Jakew trying to remove my content on the circumcision page. He first reverted my edit claiming it was not in the article. When I cited the data in the article supporting this, he claimed it was original research which it was not. (e.g. I stated removed foreskin is twice as sensitive as remaining foreskin on circumsized males, the author stated sensitivity is ~0.092 vs. 0.192 respectively). Though I'm tempted to abandoned the article to a single person who believes he is single handedly defending the article against "the deceptive activities of many activist groups apposed to neonatal circumcision", I think we should instead encourage everyone, include Jakew, to find consensus and discussion instead of single minded reverts. 174.28.162.94 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC).

Hammond

I've reverted the following addition, which was added to the end of the paragraph in the 'foreskin sensitivity' section beginning "Boyle et al. (2002) argued that...":

• "Hammond's survey (1999) of several hundred men documenting long-term physical, emotional, and sexual harm from infant circumcision supports this conclusion."

There are several problems with this addition:

• First, it's original research. Hammond did not refer to Boyle et al; indeed his paper was published several years before. So the claim that it "supports this conclusion" is a new hypothesis.
• Second, it misrepresents the source. A certain fraction of the men in Hammond's paper reported sexual problems, but since the survey did not include a control group for comparison, it would be impossible to establish correlation with circumcision, let alone causation. At best one would have to say that the men attributed these problems to their circumcision (or that Hammond did). Furthermore, care would have to be taken to avoid giving the impression that the survey is more representative than it may be. Hammond himself expressed concern about this; others have described it as an "inherently biased sample". Jakew (talk) 15:58, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup needed?

I find this article to be very confusing. The introduction is concise and to the point at least: there no apparent consensus on the issues. What then follows is a few good sections on sensitivy and the article thereupon degenerates into a list of research. Why were these particular articles cited? If these are really known to be representative, then there should be a more applicable review article to cite and paraphrase, and if they are not known to be representative then this particular page may represent an original and inconclusive meta-analysis, which should be frowned upon.

There is then the problem of statistical significance: only the probability of type 1 errors (the p-value) is represented. But if one wants to support the null hypothesis, then the probability of type 2 errors is the only important measure of significance (in the English sense of the word not the specialized statistical sense). With that in mind, the articles which do not reject the null hypothesis are possibly given undue weight, there is no way to know without the power being represented. Again, why were these articles selected? Then there is the Richters and Fink articles, which reject the null hypothesis but are not statistically significant; so why is it significant for this article?

It is difficult to tell if this list of articles represent an original research meta-analysis, a POV cherry picking, or merely a haphazard NPOV collection of the various issues collected through some unknown means. The overemphasis on statistical significance and the ignorance of statistical power gives undue weight to the null hypothesis for any given issue; this is undoubtedly POV although which point of view depends on the particular issue. The easiest remedy would be to delete from the end of the sensitivity section down, but that is a bit excessive especially since these articles at the very least highlight the various issues and the lack of consensus. An involved fix would be to add the statistical power, eliminate studies with redundant findings in favor of reviews and tie the studies together into some coherent paragraphs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.240.68.68 (talk) 14:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Richters (2006)

Richters (2006) in the table under "Penile Sensation" is labeled as finding penile sensation "Better in circumcised males" but the abstract says "This study provides no evidence about the effects on sexual sensitivity." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.221.142 (talk) 00:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Is this page needed anymore? It should be redirected to Circumcision

In the discussion Talk:Medical analysis of circumcision#Why should this article exist? we reviewed whether having that separate article was worthwhile. After looking at it we determined it was a dumping ground for bad sources and ended up redirecting it back to the main article. I think the same is true for this article. It's all primary sources of wildly varying quality and age, with no criteria for inclusion, and the article tries to go as far in doing its own meta-analysis of the primary sources without actually doing so, and we should not be doing that. Nor should be we making an article that encourages the reader to do their own meta-analysis of the sources whichever editors happened to see fit to include (or not). While I was updating Circumcision#Sexual_effects I found a number of good-quality, up-to-date reliable secondary sources that cover this topic. I see no value in keeping this article around. Anybody agree and willing to redirect this one to Circumcision like we did Medical analysis of circumcision? Zad68 17:30, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep. This is an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias are tertiary sources. Biosthmors (talk) 17:41, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Agree. —MistyMorn (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done That's 3 of us, and there's also agreement from a Mystery Editor, so I'll go ahead and redirect. Zad68 17:54, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Disagree 09:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahel2 (talk • contribs)