Wikipedia talk:Child protection

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Policy status of the ban clause

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@Alison The ban clause was added by a banned sock back in 2018, who was reverted twice consecutively by @Ianmacm and @Tornado chaser, I failed to locate a discussion related to the addition either. This failed the most basic WP:EDITCON, and 6 years don't count as forever. However, the part that irks me the most is how it is simply not how banning works, banning only occurs by community discussions, three strikes socking violation, or ArbCom or WMF decisions. Kenneth Kho (talk) 00:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of our opinions on how banning works, the wording should follow what actually happens. I have only seen a handful of cases and they were years ago, but my recollection is that the editors concerned ended up in Category:Wikipedians banned by the Wikimedia Foundation. Johnuniq (talk) 02:30, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that the wording should follow what actually happens. But a quick check would show that it is not the case, I only had to click a few to stumble upon 86sedan, which was only blocked initially before the gradual escalation in 2023. Even if it is correct that all the editors ended up banned, it is clear that the bans were consistent with banning policy and not abrupt. Kenneth Kho (talk) 09:31, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find an exact edit where I reverted this in 2018, but Tornado Chaser's revert is here. As this has policy related issues, it should not be changed without a talk page consensus.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The description of the revert that you linked is "Unexplained changes to policy." I was puzzled that the revert was not substantive, so I assume the intent was to revert the substantive change made by the same editor here, i.e. this one [1]. Kenneth Kho (talk) 20:38, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Editorial disputes about fictional child pornography?

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Um this page doesn't really go into this but I think that maybe it should? Sometimes situations aren't as clear as go to ANI/someone is POV-pushing and this page could probably say something about that. For example, Talk:Shipping discourse#There needs to be more distinction about pedophilia compared to other aspects of shipping discourse. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:46, 25 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fictional child pornography does not include real children and therefore is not CSAM. As for whether fictional pornography is a slippery slope that leads to actual abuse, that is beyond the scope of this policy.--Gapazoid (talk) 22:16, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whether fictional child pornography includes real children depends what you mean by "fictional" - there are cases where the first part of your statement is true (e.g. cartoon depictions of entirely fictitious people and events), cases where it is not (e.g. lifelike depictions of real people, even if the events depicted are fictional) and obviously a large grey area between. Whether any or all such material is child-sexual abuse material is a legal question with different answers in different jurisdictions. Whether any or all such material harms children is partly a psychological/biomedical question that has not been definitively answered and partly a legal question that again varies between jurisdictions. Similarly whether such material is or is not a slippery slope is a behavioural question that again has not been subject to sufficient reliable study to have a definitive answer - I have a vague recollection of reading a blog or something similar from someone working in a relevant field that basically said the reason for the lack of research is two-fold, firstly nobody had come up with an experimental design that was ethical, and secondly there is such strong prejudices regarding the topic area that there is large pressure to avoid doing the research, whether ethical or not.
None of these questions are ones Wikipedia can or should attempt to answer, as they are massively beyond our scope. Thryduulf (talk) 11:45, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On banning pedophiles

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This is going nowhere, the policy isn't going to change any time soon, and advocating for it to be changed here is not going to do anything. Primefac (talk) 01:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am not a pedophile, but know a person who is. That person has never acted on their beliefs and never will. The article claims that pedophiles will be banned immediately. Isn't this unfair for someone who may have a genuine condition, and also violate 2 of the 3 pillars of the project (NPOV and AGF)? OmegaAOLtalk? 18:53, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pedophiles are radioactive, and we are not interested in hosting them here. Especially after what happened recently. There are many causes you could champion, and I recommend you pick a different one that has more community support. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:01, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I feel bad for that guy. Why is this policy even here in the first place (what is "radioactive"?), to the point where it's driving people to suicide? It really should be changed. Whacky6536 (talk) 11:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Let me give you a hypothetical example. Someone self-identifies as pedophile on-WP and then starts editing Children in emergencies and conflicts or whatever. This is then reported on CNN as Wikipedia allows self-declared pedophile to edit articles about children. Other reports will be less appreciative. That is radioactive. Not worth the hassle for this website. Sort of a consequence of WP:Wikipedia is in the real world. If the world changes, perhaps WP will too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps. I was hoping that Wikipedia would be more progressive than that. Thanks for the answer, though. Whacky6536 (talk) 12:11, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We had one self-described pedophile who persistently edited here despite being banned under this policy. He also targeted admins on here, including myself. He went on to kidnap a child for sex, was arrested, and ultimately died in prison. Pedophiles have not had a great track record on here - Alison talk 13:11, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strange, I thought I unwatched this thread. But I got an email, so I shall reply.
I don't think one person's crimes justify such a broad policy, otherwise you would have to ban a lot more groups! The protestor was quite clear about being non-offending too, being from Virtuous Pedophiles and all. Whacky6536 (talk) 13:34, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Are there really other groups we need to ban to be consistent? I mean yes if there was a group advocating for rape, and we had people here who identified as part of that group, or as people who want to commit rape but don't while it is illegal or even tried to change articles to advocate for decriminalisation of rape, then I'm sure we'd ban them. Pedophilia is unusual in that we needed to set out such a policy, if we'd never had people come here and try to advocate for pedophilia then we might not have such policies. Similarly if we'd never had to worry about spam, copyvio or vandalism we'd never have created all the plethora of noticeboards and specific warning templates that we have in response to spam, copyvio and vandalism. I'm a straight British atheist, I don't need a bunch of specific edit filters and essays to combat heterophobia and Britbashing because such things barely exist, or at least not here. I do remember one Wikipedian who struck me as prejudiced against atheists, but I just don't encounter anti atheism prejudice here in the way I do on say Quora. But homophobia, antisemitism and islamophobia, those are all known problems here and we need to be ready to block people who try to normalise those views here. That doesn't mean that no Wikipedian is homophobic or anti semitic off wiki, just that if someone uncontentiously writes about a particular sport, style of architecture or dynasty and keeps their prejudices at the door, then who are we to even know that in real life they choose to live in a country where the values are very different to those of wikimedia's universal code of conduct ϢereSpielChequers 11:14, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The whole point of non-offending pedophiles is that they don't do that and don't advocate for that. Banning all pedophiles, including non-offending ones, is like banning all men from editing Wikipedia due to the high number of male rapists, and men whom advocate for rape.
Please, instead of blaming the protestor, look into yourselves and ask why the bigoted "don't ask, don't tell" policy is driving people to basically threaten suicide at a public event. Whacky6536 (talk) 11:39, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Please, instead of blaming the protestor
I was there when this guy was waving a gun around in the same room as me and caused a bunch of people to sprint for their lives and caused a day of conference programming to be cancelled. I think I will blame the protestor for this one. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:23, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, in the same way that an attempted self immolation causes panic (even though no one's lives were in danger except the protestor's) and the cancellation of just a single day of an event. But that is nothing compared to the injustices NOMAPs face.
Also, if you're wondering, I'm just an ally. Whacky6536 (talk) 17:15, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a bloke. I don't think that a ban on rapists would be targeted at me. Most pedophiles are men, but the pedophile ban doesn't stop me editing because that ban is targeted at pedophiles, not at all men. It does stop those who identify as Pedophiles on Wikipedia, or who advocate for pedophilia. Where we would have an interesting edge case would be if we discovered that an editor on a completely different topic had a criminal record for pedophilia. I'm not sure what would happen then. ϢereSpielChequers 18:12, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ban them. I know of at least one case where this has happened. Primefac (talk) 01:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comparing a policy that prohibits people who are open about their sexual attraction to adults of the same sex from serving in the armed forces, with a policy that prohibits people who are open about their sexual attraction to children from posting on Wikipedia, is flat-out offensive.
Unless there's precedent against doing so, this whole talk page section should be removed, archived, or hatted. Funcrunch (talk) 21:31, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.