Talk:Foreskin restoration/Archive 2

message: DanP, I notice that you want to include a reference to Kimmel and Sorrels. A NOCIRC press release isn't really a reliable source (nor, indeed, is any press release). Although I am rather dubious of any "research" performed by NOCIRC campaigners and presented at anti-circ symposia, that was the case with Taylor's preliminary "research", and I've been willing to accept that so far, so I guess it's fair to be consistent. Could you find either a) the conference abstract, or b) a full write-up in a journal? If so, I've no objection to its inclusion. - Jakew 12:25, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Jakew, thank you for responding on this.  If you haven't noticed, many dubious sources of pro-circumcision and related propaganda are in this and many other articles.  According to NPOV, we may certainly include facts -- "including facts about opinions--but don't assert opinions themselves".  I am not asserting here that the Kimmel and Sorrels study (or their opinions) are accurate, only that it was reported and presented at symposia on circumcision.  The vile mutilation propaganda (aka Szabo and Short) you've included doesn't even mention restoration, yet I have not added warning labels to announcing the context and slant of the author.  Please be consistent here. DanP 19:32, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's address one issue at a time, Dan. The fact remains that press releases are not reliable sources of information. Now, are you able to provide a conference abstract? It really isn't much to ask, and I think you'll find that abstracts (as a minimum) are provided for any other study mentioned. It's true that Szabo and Short do not mention restoration, but what's the relevance? They do disprove the hypothesis that glans coverage affects keratinisation, which is relevant to discussion of restoration. - Jakew 11:58, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: That connection is your extrapolation and is only one POV.  The Szabo and Short article is on HIV, not restoration.  It only makes a remote reference to glans keritinization, and perhaps I should be asking you to make your references more direct.  There is no standard in Wikipedia forbidding press releases, and the sensitivity testing of restoring men is noteworthy.  DanP 18:53, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Kimmel

message: Jakew, concerning the link you and Robert are promoting "Self-mutilation: Attempted Foreskin Reconstruction", what are you doing here?  Do you want isolated cases to be identified as the norm or are you prompting restoration diaries of successful restoration to be included here?  Where is your scientific method?  Do you approve of articles about boys dying from circumcision to be posted in the male circumcision article?  This is so clearly rampant POV, but it goes along with the "all restoring men are gay mental patients" slant. DanP 19:56, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Obvious is the fact that the majority of foreskin restoration diaries and available accounts result in successful restoration and improvement in function to some degree as determined by the man himself.  Yes, I can expand enormously on risks and potential harms, and I'm OK with including them if you wish.  But you fail to understand that you have skewed this to a non-representative sampling, even by your standards.  This is a condition you would never accept in the circumcision article, as factual accounts of boys being hunted down during the circumcision season, sometimes being killed by circumcision wounds, factual as it is, would never survive your mass-deletion efforts.  I see a milder tit-for-tat far less destructive than your mass-deletion of factual information about circumcision-related topics.  If you disagree, then do I have your approval to delete your link addition?  DanP 19:05, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am reverting Robert's anti-consensus edits and the complication link.  And I'm adding a counterpoint to the glans study.  I will also leave out many of the various paragraphs on supporters/critic to hopefully find consensus.  I hope this is acceptable.  DanP 23:35, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I wonder if you have the vaguest idea of what the word consensus means? I suggest that it is time for you and your new tag-team partner to come clean and fess up to your POV intentions on Wikipedia. Cute little comments on the talk page serve no purpose other than perhaps to hightlight an attempt to deceive. - Robert the Bruce 17:39, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased stories 

message: On the glidings action page there has been a demand that all content that is not supported by "original research" and able to be vouched for gets removed from the article. I agree with this. Here we have the problem that much of the claims are nothing more than "some people report". This needs to be addressed. Who are these people? What is the scientific status of what they report? etc etc. I will start to clean up the article little by little so as to avoid any accusations of vandalism. - Robert the Bruce 17:09, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This "some people" routine

message: I am coming to the conclusion that this article will never, ever be neutral or factually accurate or even well written.  At least not without a major overhaul and the cooperation of all editors.
There are several problems.  The article "Prepuce Restoration Seekers: Psychiatric Aspects" is clearly biased -- read the section on "common features of homosexuality" for one.  The article is also basically overkill: we've established that some men have issues surrounding the fact they've been circumcised.  
Certain people are trying, via a twist in logic, to make the point here that that this necessarily means that a majority of foreskin restorers have psychiatric problems; it's clear, however, that much of the evidence presented here relates to circumcision, not to restoration.  
Someone is now trying to say that male circumcision is a form of body modification.  Well, it might be if done at the request of an adult male, but infant circumcisions don't fall under that category, not as the term is generally understood.
Someone keeps removing the term "American" from the discussion of T. Hammond's poll.  I can't imagine why.  By the way, that poll is clearly biased: the majority of the respondents are middle-aged, white, Americans, half of whom are attempting foreskin restoration.
Someone keeps screwing with certain quotes.  Anyone who's ever written an academic paper knows that block quotes do not require quotation marks.  
Someone has restored a quote attributed to Kimmel in which it is stated that he said that perceived increase in glans sensitivity is psychological.  In the source given there is no such quote (it is claimed by another reviewer of a book Kimmel reviewed that Kimmel said so in his review.  According to the sources, he didn't).  
In the emotional and psychiatric section, someone has quoted extensively from the Hammond poll without attributing the quotes or putting them in context.  This is not neutral or strictly factual, given the bias inherent in that poll, and represents yet another example of the tendency, in this article, for people to take information from sources which are anyway suspect and misrepresent it by incorporating it without context (again, many of the problems people are here attributing to restorers are claimed to be suffered by those who are circumcised.)  
The Goodwin article, which I removed and somone else restored, is another example.
What is needed here is the removal of all questionable material.  I suggest that we eliminate everything except what is known without doubt or bias to be fact: some men attempt restoration; they do it in particular ways, for various reasons, with varying results.  Until some credible, reliable evidence can be found to support the other various claims in the article, they have no place in it.
Exploding Boy 18:37, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
:EB, I tend to agree.  However, I am disturbed by the heavy circumcision-debate-slant in the article.  There is no merit for such debate here.  The circumcision was already done, that is almost certain, and we should remove everything related except mentioning that fact and linking to the male circumcision article.  We do not debate mastectomy in the breast reconstruction article -- it is clearly a separate process.  Indeed there is a minority who restore their foreskin who have very little opinion on circumcision-ethics and some who have even chosen circumcision as adults for one reason or another (making them pro-circumcision in some respects).  It is time to pull the plug on Robert, and his British pal Jakew, with their warped misunderstanding of what circumcision really is.  They simply have no interest in sharing Wikipedia with others, and I recommend reverting to a mid-December version and going from there.  If research is added, it should refer specifically to restoration, not idle speculation about politics. DanP 19:00, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Failing grade, absolutely.  Some related information is fine.  But now politics and everything under the sun is in here.  I have personally heard of only one intact man who was restoring due to short foreskin, so it seems comparatively rare.  I propose that we include the fact you mentioned:  that restoration generally is usually limited to circumcised men.  Other than that, we can relocate the circumcision information to its respective articles.  Foreskin restoration should be presented as a process just as breast reconstruction.  Even the male circumcision article is not littered with "the kooky pro-circumcision people believe" disclaimers.  If we have to put this up for a vote, let's do it.  Otherwise, if circumcision damage and its reversal is fair game, we can include very specific academic sources of circumcision damage that meets your criteria.  But it would be immediately deleted by Robert and Jakew.  So either they have to go, or heavy circumcision debate has to be mitigated.   DanP 18:51, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: the problem with this article

message: This article, , has been listed on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.  Further disruptive edits, vandalism, or an edit war in progress will cause this page to be protected.  Please keep in mind that the Wikipedia has a three revert rule and may cause you to be blocked if you make more than three revisions within a 24 hour period, not counting revisions due to vandalism.  The Wikipedia would like to assume good faith, and ask editors to calmly and rationally approach a resolution before the article is protected.  Should this page be protected, please request for its unprotection also at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. -- AllyUnion (talk) 07:58, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection warning 

message: This article has been protected by Admin Raul654.  Should you feel that the article needs to be unprotected, please visit Wikipedia:Requests for page protection.  However, it seems that an intervention has been stepped in, and a temporary rewrite is in progress. -- AllyUnion (talk) 13:02, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: Jayjg, if you think the article is not NPOV, please follow TShilo12's example and edited the article instead of reverting it.  There is no need to go back to the 16 November 2005 version.
Also a reversion should not be marked as a minor edit.
*Marking a major change as a minor one is considered poor etiquette, especially if the change involves the deletion of some text.
*Reversions of pages are not likely to be considered minor edits under most circumstances.
Please do not mark significant changes, including reversions, as minor edits. -- DanBlackham 01:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The changes were neither NPOV, nor discussed in Talk: first. Reverts are minor edits by default; if you have any concerns about the use of the minor edit flag, please take them up with Rood, who completely POVd the introduction using both the flag and using a misleading edit summary. And if you think any of Rood's unsourced and uncited change belong (e.g. "It must be emphasized, however, that the process is one of growing skin cells, not that of stretching skin" please make a case for it here. Jayjg (talk) 03:31, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Reversions

message: An anonymous contributor (67.182.41.63) added the following sentence: "Foreskin Restoration is the fastest growing male cosmetic surgery in the united states."  Do you have a reference to support this statement?  Most people familiar with foreskin restoration recommend non-surgical foreskin restoration, not surgical foreskin restoration. -- DanBlackham 08:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call, Dan.  A foreskin is such a mobile structure that surgical replacement or enhancement seems to be contra-indicated, though people on foreskin restoration discussion groups mention minor tightening surgery as a cosmetic "finisher".  The problem with referencing those groups is that they require membership, are often deleted by the discussion group host as allegedly outside their terms of service so are transient, and are also anecdoctal rather than authoritative.  Perhaps the main article could be edited to reflect the contra-indication, whle stating that it is a pragmatic, not an autoritative statement?  Fiddle Faddle 10:35, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fastest growing cosmetic surgery

message: Could anyone find some statistics for how many men there are who have reconstructed or are reconstructing?
:The answer is, of course, "No".  When considering such figures you need to take into account at least the following items:
:* National incidence of circumcision
:* Whether the national incidence is religion based, coming of age ritual based, or for other reasons
:* The access in that nation to the internet - the major source of information on foreskin restoration
:Then you also need to look at whether this is a thing that men are likely to speak about to a researcher
:Some attempts were made on the various Yahoo groups that discuss(ed) foreskin restoration to estimate then numbers, but these estimates were hard to achieve.  Yahoo killed one group back in March without explaining its reasons, either in the Press or to its moderator, owner or members, which had over 4,000 members, mostly in the USA but with a global reach.   However it is impossible to extrapolate from a group with anonymous email based membership to a global figure.
:While I am sure statistics may be compiled from medical records for surgical techniques, foreskin restoration does not usually require surgical intervention, thus the data simply does not exist.
:Fiddle Faddle 15:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Figures? 

message: Does anyone have a picture of an uncircumcision? There's one in that Circumstitions site, is it OK to steal it? BTW it looks horrible. Cuzandor 19:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it's not ok to steal it, but you could email the site owner (hugh@buzz.net.nz - User:Hugh7 on Wikipedia) and ask permission, assuming of course that he holds the copyright himself. Jakew 19:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I added the link as an external link, is that OK? Cuzandor 20:31, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why it should be a problem. Jakew 20:34, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Talk to NORM.  Wayne will have several Fiddle Faddle 22:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture