Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greek love (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. There is broad agreement that the current state of the article is not acceptable, and I hope that those arguing to keep and improve will not assume somebody else will be doing it as it does need a lot of improvement. However, deletion is not warranted at this time as even the nominator has acknowledged that this is a bad article but a notable topic. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:39, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Greek love

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Greek love
• Articles for deletion/Greek love (2nd nomination)

Greek love (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics

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In the previous Afd, Greek love was presented as a non-notable term. It is in fact many different terms and some of them are notable. The article brings these terms together in an original way, citing literature that treats them separately - see for example [list of sources]. This breaches WP policy: Wikipedia:No original research. At different times in the past, the article has been edited to include or exclude different sources to reflect the personal preferences of different editors, resulting in content forking, edit wars, loss of useful sources and 'POV' pushing. I believe the article should be deleted. The content can be redistributed to more appropriate articles where it can be developed properly. A disambiguation list should be created where appropriate as this will allow readers to research the different meanings of the term without WP editors doing it for them. A merge would be difficult since a number of articles have strong claims to such a merger but the option is of course open to discussion. McZeus (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 05:39, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 05:40, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Delete is my 1st option, 2nd is merge with Pederasty in ancient Greece (the historic meaning), 3rd is merge with Anal sex (a popular/slang term, appropriate for a popular encyclopaedia. McZeus (talk) 05:48, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and per WP:SYNTH, also a POV fork of a number of other articles - Alison ^❤ 06:05, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
  • And what unsourced theory being advanced here would make this an improper synthesis (which is what WP:SYNT is about)? Tijfo098 (talk) 14:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Rebuild as a disambiguation page or set index It should just be a list article to list various articles where the various meanings of "Greek love" could be found, like male homosexuality. 76.66.203.138 (talk) 06:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Disambig it -- I agree with 76, a disambiguation page would be best, so people looking for different meanings of "Greek love" will still find what they're looking for. --- cymru lass ^{(hit me up)}⁄_{(background check)} 09:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep There are plenty of pages with problems such as edit wars - that's not a reason to delete. It does have a clear theme with a term that has been a topic of scholarly research.Dejvid (talk) 16:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: the term is context-specific i.e. it means different things in different contexts, and thus it operates as a virtual synonym for various terms. Define the context and you end up recreating a WP article that already exists. Hence merging is a possibility.McZeus (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Strong keep. This is not a fork of any page; the subject of this article (the description of various practices - mostly but not entirely homoerotic - as "Greek love") is mentioned on several pages, but described on none. It is now entirely disjoint from the articles on the ancient world or on the various sexual practices. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• This same editor has tried several pretexts to get rid of the same article; he vehemently backed the last deletion request - which was on a much worse version of the article; he has suggested disambiguation before - and it went nowhere ; please speedy close as forum-shopping. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Those who are interested in converting to a dab should discuss there; it does not require AfD and needs more detail than the page has room for. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: the current edit reflects your choice of sources. Others might choose other sources and that is where the edit wars start. I invite everyone to look at the talk page there to see the sort of thing that happens with that article continually, and you should inspect the whole sad, troubled history of it. You'll find my contributions in the archives also. I have made contributions there under various user names in an effort to sort out the article's problems - check my user page for a list of my usernames. McZeus (talk) 21:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

That is a falsehood; I have rejected one source, both tertiary and erroneous, but none of the writing in the article as it stands is mine. I am glad to see that McZeus at least acknowledges his sock-puppets. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:57, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Delete per Alison. A Macedonian (talk) 05:30, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep The subject seems to be noteworthy and is not treated comprehensively on other pages. The same editor who nominated it for deletion has done so twice and engaged in lengthy battles with several other editors on the article's discussion page, in the page's archive, and in the project page, always attempting to justify removing most or all of the content over the objection of most other editors. The only reason the article has been nominated for deletion again is because there was no hope of obtaining a consensus for doing so in those forums. The only point of view being pushed here is that of the nominator. P Aculeius (talk) 13:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm in good company, thankyou. McZeus (talk) 09:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep There are entire books written about the topic such as Greek Love and The Greeks and Greek Love. The topic is therefore notable and should not be a redlink. The rest is a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion, per our editing policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:57, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• Delete [or move/disambig/redirect: see below]. Septentrionalis says the subject is "the description" -- i.e. the term itself. I agree this is the only proper definition of a topic with this title. (I have to reject e.g. Colonel Warden's suggestion that the two books named are "about the topic.") The question is whether treating this subject is possible without getting into WP:SYN on the one side or WP:NOT#DICT on the other. One thing and one thing only will give us solid middle ground between them: the existence of WP:RS on the topic. So I decide the question by taking stock of the sources found so far to support the article. I am very disappointed with them: they are incidental usages of the term, or single items in long lists of terms of overlapping reference. I am uneasy seeing claims about Greek love per se footnoted with sources that, typically, just happen to use that term in preference to others in a particular sentence. A single sentence by David Buchbinder (in the collection edited by Petrelli) actually says something about the term, attempting to define the reference: but at this scale, it's dictionary-work not encyclopedic-topic-work. It is quite possible that the valuable work of editors on this article has put them in a position to draft a dictionary article with good citations, but I can't convince myself it rises above that level. (There is valuable non-dictionary-level discussion in the article, but it seems equally appropriate to other existing Wikipedia articles.) Wareh (talk) 14:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with most of this, but come to a different conclusion. I considered the possibility of moving to Wiktionary, which an invocation of WP:NOT#DICT would imply. (And Col. Warden's books are largely off-topic, although one of them may have useful data; the second half of this book, however, seems precisely on topic.) But there is already more information than a Wiktionary article would want; nor do I see any existing article in which this particular intersection of LGBT history and classical historiography would all fit. If there is one, what is it? (And, procedurally, this would be a result of merge, which is a keep; we want anyone who looks up Greek love to be redirected to the material.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:49, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Procedurally I agree that Greek love should at minimum be a redirect, and that some content to guide the reader to redirect as desired (i.e. a disambiguation) would probably be better. My final parenthesis recognized your point that there is "more information" here; if this discussion endorses my view that this information is encyclopedic but not about "Greek love," then the logical result (as I see it) would be that one or more other articles (Homosexuality in ancient Greece, Pederasty in ancient Greece, etc.) need sections on how the idea of "Greek" practices outlived antiquity. I wouldn't even mind if the result were move, if the "legacy of ancient Greek same sex-relations in the modern imaginary" is better kept on one page than parceled out into legacy sections of articles on ancient topics. So, I'm really quite flexible, and you are quite right that my substantive objections to labeling all of this "the topic of Greek love" could be satisfied otherwise than by deletion. Wareh (talk) 19:16, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep per Colonel Warden--no doubt that this is a real and notable concept (or group of concepts)--but serious post-AfD consideration should be given to converting this to a DAB or set index article per 76.66.203.138.--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:38, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Having the same guy nominate this again, under a different user name, seems rather wrong. We decided in the last AFD the article was fine, there ample mentions of Greek love out there. [1] As I said last time "The term shows up in plenty places. The article has plenty of references. It has enough content to be its own article, not combined with something else. It is uniquely different than other articles of similar topics. Therefore, it has both a reason and a right to exist. " Dream Focus 18:18, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep The article has improved since the last AFD failed. That is not to deny that this is a problematic subject. The article could usefully be on a few watchlists for POV-pushing by NAMBLA types. And some sources need to be treated with care. For example, the first book which User:Colonel Warden lists above is written by an expert on numismatics who died while serving a sentence for child-molestation and not a respectable academic. However, there are also respectable sources out there and there is plenty of scope for a good article on the social history of the term and the discources that different users of the term were advancing at different times. Merging is inappropriate. The article isn't about anal sex or what the ancient Greeks did but about a created term. As such it can be compared with Right to exist, Zionist entity, A land without a people and various other ideologically-weighted terms that exist within the Arab-Israeli dispute that have their own articles which again examine the history of and the concepts that underly the terms.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:03, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: Yes it is 'problematic' and this is an encyclopaedia that anybody can edit. I don't know any scholars in the world who have endeavoured to pull together all this material - it is a huge ask even for experts. It is completely beyond the means of editors like us. McZeus (talk) 09:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. I agree with Peter cohen. The article doesn't do a good job, but that isn't grounds to delete. It also isn't a dictionary entry in disguise. It's about how a reimagined Greek past is used as a model (stylistic, aesthetic, socially constructed) for conceptualizing homoeroticism: "In the history of sexuality, Greek love is a concept of homoeroticism within the classical tradition" might be one way to begin. "Greek love" is not a label for any real-world practice or social custom among the ancient Greeks themselves. When I search the library of the Kinsey Institute for "Greek love," the second item that comes up is the collection of essays I cited at Talk:Greek love as a clear example of how this is a topic in the history of sexuality. Among the other lively items that typically spring up in a Kinsey search, one finds the following works of scholarship that attest to notability, the existence of reliable sources, and encyclopedic suitability:

• Hubbard, Greek Love Reconsidered
• Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, and Other Essays on Greek Love
• Crompton, Byron and Greek Love
• Lell, The Rape of Ganymede: Greek-love Themes in Elizabethan Friendship Literature
• Brown, Sexuality and feminism in Shelley, which contains "Shelley's comparatively unknown essay on Greek love"

There's no question of OR or synth; the topic is recognized and well-explored. Even Williams has to invoke the phrase in his attempt to exorcize it. The article should exist to explain a concept that evidently has required a lot of explaining. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The collection of essays you cite features "Greek love" mostly in the reference sections. Within the main body of these "wide-ranging" essays, the Google search shows the term Greek love appearing only 6 times, and one of these is as a synonym for other terms (pge 399)! You cite books dealing with different epochs and societies and lump them together because they have Greek love in the titles - but titles are chosen by publishers for marketing value. We can't construct an article on this kind of research. Pulling all this material together is either original research or else, as Wareh points out, it is turning the article into a kind of dictionary. If you can publish a paper or a book about the history of the term 'Greek love', and if it is published by a reliable academic publisher, then we'll have the basis for an article anyone can edit. But even the experts haven't managed that yet. McZeus (talk) 12:11, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment. I will say that the section of Williams' book (p. 63) Cynwolfe links (I'll admit it: I'm lazy, I looked into only the one source on her list that had a link) looks like exactly the kind of on-topic discussion the article should cite, and which I found lacking in my own survey of its cited sources (including Williams, p. 72). His phrase there can be slightly modified to what I'd see as the strictly correct and defensible subject of an article entitled Greek love, if more such sources could be found "ancient [and modern] sources that explicitly or implicitly identify a sexual practice as Greek." If this discussion results in keep, I would like to see this exactly and clearly stated as the article's subject, & all the contents & sources below strictly weighed for whether they're really directed right at that topic. Wareh (talk) 16:50, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

You are sooo not lazy. But I actually don't think the topic is about ancient Greece per se, but the use of ancient Greece as a way to think about a subject that until quite recently in the West was taboo. And I think that's what the problem with the current article is: it doesn't have a clear sense of a concept that unfolds period by period. For instance, in a section on the Romantics, a much-needed paragraph on Shelley's essay about "Greek love" (which Crompton deals with) wouldn't be about ancient Greece; it would be about Shelley's approach to ancient Greece (that is, the Romantic reception of the classical tradition) — which is what the scholarship does. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I agree with you about the subject. My addition "and modern" states the predominant part of the subject, with Williams' "ancient" only retained because (as he discusses) already in the Roman world the label "Greek" was (analogously to the modern uses) a way to think about sexual practices. "Post-Greeks thinking about sex and love as 'Greek'," in other words: including Romans. Wareh (talk) 18:36, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Here is PMAnderson's latest take on Williams from the talk page (italics mine):

"According to author Craig A. Williams suggests (falsely) that what follows is his position in a controversy. It is not; and it is not controversial; the term is a modern innovation and that is what the article is here to discuss. This is a statement of fact, with a source; in principle, it should be repeated in the article - probably first, as a matter of chronology - and sourced there." (12 Non. 22:24)

Those who argue for Keep still can't agree amongst themselves what is or is not appropriate for inclusion in this article. That has always been the problem with this article. McZeus (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Disagreements over POV or what's appropriate for inclusion are not among the criteria for deletion. This falls under WP:ATD: "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing" and "Disputes over page content are not dealt with by deleting the page." Elsewhere on this page, you seem to indicate that the article requires "expert attention." Discussions of the article's content belong on its talk page. I don't see any of the criteria for deletion satisfied here. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Were disagreements about POV or scope criteria for deletion, we would delete Barack Obama and Libertarianism by Speedy; but that is not how AfD operates, and this is just as well. It would give POV-pushers two cracks at getting their way: they could push to their heart's content, and - if rebuffed - nominate for deletion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:53, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• Delete. Convert to disambiguation page. The article is a POV-fork and original research in the form of synthesis. There is no mystery about the contemporary meaning of "Greek love" - it's widely known as slang for anal sex. That's how it's defined in modern dictionaries and that's how it's used. But the article is about something else, ideas that are already covered by many other articles, making this a POV-fork. Here is a sampling of pages that already cover the same ideas:

• Pederasty
• Pederasty in ancient Greece
• Homosexuality in ancient Greece
• Cretan pederasty
• Ancient Greek eros

And here are some of many other pages that could equally well be redirected from the same term:

• Platonic love
• Agape
• Eros
• Greek words for love
• Anal sex

There are no reliable sources defining the phrase explicitly as it is presented in the article. The term is used in various sources, but as a descriptive phrase to refer to various ideas. It does not have a generally-accepted academic definition.

That's why this term requires a basic disambiguation page, with the various uses of the term linked to the pages that present those topics in the proper context. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 05:43, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

The articles Jack-A-Roe lists are about "sexuality in ancient Greece", but "Greek love" is not about describing sexual practices in ancient Greece. The article is poorly written as it stands, and perhaps that's causing the confusion. If you read every single article JAR listed, you would have not the slightest idea what "Greek love" is, because none of them deals with the topic. What do any of these have to do with Shelley and Byron, or Elizabethan friendship? It's the difference between toga, a garment worn by ancient Romans, and toga party, which surely should not be deleted in order to redirect to convivium. Wareh's point in his jesting redlink is precisely that "Greek love" is not about the sexual practices of the ancient Greeks. "Greek love" is about the intellectual history of a "lifestyle" model after the time of the ancient Greeks; it's an aspect of the classical tradition as it intersects with history of sexuality, and that's how it is discussed in all the sources I listed above. Peter cohen grasps this distinction quite well. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:57, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: Jack-A-Roe's point about "Greek love" being contemporary slang for "anal sex" is entirely relevant: the article "Greek love" properly done would illustrate how it came to be so. But "Greek love" to the Romantic poets was not that crassly reductive; it was part of a classicizing aesthetic, what they perceived as a Greek model from classical antiquity. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:03, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: The article has been around since December 2005 and here we all are still trying to formulate a definition of the subject. Can you quote me a commonly used definition that clearly tells me what belongs in the article and what doesn't? McZeus (talk) 23:53, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Reply. We're under no obligation to do so here. This is a deletion discussion. It must be demonstrated that the article meets the criteria for deletion. Arriving at a proper lede is part of the editing process. But in this regard, the introduction to an article should summarize its content. The purpose of an article on Religion, for example, is surely not to dictate a universal definition of "religion" that applies to all times and places, but to inform the person looking up "religion" of the various possibilities of what "religion" might mean, depending on the context in which it's encountered. On such a broad topic, you're likely to have a historical approach organized within each culture or religion, with sections cross-referenced to more specific articles. "Greek love" is a much more manageable topic. From my cursory look at the scholarship, you'd have:

• the literary Hellenization of homoeroticism in Rome;
• the Renaissance, again associated with a broader 'rediscovery' of Greek models (humanist buggery, not to put too fine a point on it);
• the Romantics (and probably the Victorians, though I haven't seen this yet);
• the 20th century and its high-low fork of 'theoretizing' sexuality and the popularization of the phrase as slang for particular sex acts or preoccupations.

And boom, you're done, or at least have sufficient bulk and structure in place to call it an article. The inability so far of any individual editors to deal with the topic adequately is not an indication of its viability. The underlying intellectual history here is plain: "Greek love" surfaces as a concept during periods when interest in Greek antiquity is particularly vivid: this is an aspect of the classical tradition (which as far as I can see also has no proper article, though Gilbert Highet is paid rather adoring tribute), and in the scholarship of the late 20th and early 21st centuries it has been approached through reception theory and concomitant with the rise of "history of sexuality" as an academic specialization (and there's an article that suffers from a similar inability to distinguish between "history of sexuality" as a field of academic inquiry, and a "history of sex and sexual behaviors," which would be nearly impossible to construct as a WP article). All the problems I see expressed here have to do with content and editing competence, which are explicitly not grounds for deletion. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:08, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I, of course, am fully in agreement with the thrust of Cynwolfe's argument. The presentation of the history of the term and the discourses surrounding its usage would go in parallel with seeing how different aspects are put into prominence at different times. Example discourses include:

• A romantic discourse: Classical Athens saw the summit of intellectual and artistic achievement in the ancient world and sexual love between men was part of that. So what's the harm in copying them, especially as we are seeking to emulate their achievements? In fact copyign them will help us be greater artists.
• A Victorian prudish discourse: Sexual love between men is such a repulsive subject. We can only refer to it in code as what those Greeks were known to do.
• A contemporary discourse: *Even in these days talking directly of anal sex is a bit icky. So let's wrap it up as a reference to those romantic Greeks.
• A late-twentieth century pederastic discourse as advanced by Walter Breen: In ancient Greece, adolescent boys were introduced to adult life by older lovers who also had a pedagogic relationship with them. Therefore my wanting to bonk little boys arises out of the purest of motivations and should be officially encouraged.

No doubt there are others, I've not thought of.--Peter cohen (talk) 19:40, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

(Chortles.) If only we could just say it that frankly in the article … Cynwolfe (talk) 19:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Peter cohen and Cynwolfe have said it all. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:12, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed they have! All that's wrong with the article. The approach that you are suggesting here will not get around the problem of original research or synthesis. It is a recipe for 'cross-contexting'. No scholar has attempted anything as ambitious as this on the theme of 'Greek love'. Where are all the scholarly voices Wikipedia needs to stop this kind of thing going ahead? I guess they have been chased off by the kind of antics that have been going on with the article and its talk page, where the discussion tags I installed were removed, where the citation tags Jack installed have been removed. It's really quite outrageous. Wikipedia is not a revolution and it is not a democracy. It is an encyclopaedia and this article is in defiance of its guidelines and rules. McZeus (talk) 21:26, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Again, if you want to delete the article, you have to show how it meets the criteria for deletion. Being badly written is not a criterion for deletion. "OR" and "synth" (even if the dozen or so works of scholarship listed here didn't indicate otherwise) are not criteria for deletion. And you're coming perilously close to merely insulting those who disagree with you. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:07, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Cynwolfe and Septentrionalis. I'd also like to point out that if articles citing different sources for each section or assertion is enough to constitute "original research" and thereby justify deletion, then pretty much all of Wikipedia needs to be deleted right away. Of course, if someone really feels that way, then perhaps this isn't the best project to be working on. P Aculeius (talk) 01:38, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

The term 'Greek love' is used in different ways, depending on the context, and each context is treated separately in the literature. Bringing it together in one article is original research. It appears from the comments above that some people think they can get around original research by creating a collection of subsections to address different contexts. The lede apparently is going to define the subject after people have reflected on the editing process. Meanwhile we must simply intuit what 'Greek love' means. Original synthesis of content forks is grounds for deletion. McZeus (talk) 22:14, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, article needs work but AFD is not cleanup, and this should be cut back rather severely. That the concept has been viewed in different ways throughout history is, I think, irrelevant--western civilization looks back to the greeks as a point of origin. I agree that the lead is a mess, but that can be fixed. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:20, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes it needs cutting back but that means limiting the subject area. Limiting the subject area means content forking. Those who want to keep the article need to give a coherent definition that covers all the different historical contexts so we can see what fits in the article and what doesn't, but then the meaning becomes so vague and generalized almost anything seems relevant. It's a fundamental dilemma justifying an AfD. McZeus (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't entirely agree. The concept of what love between men in ancient greece is notable, and has been the subject of discussion in literature and art for a long time. That the concept changes from generation to generation makes a simple definition difficult, if not impossible, but does not make the subject non-notable. That being said, there may be a better name for this article, something like "The concept of Greek love in western history" perhaps? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:01, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Yes that's a perfect title for this article. Unfortunately there is no source book that covers Greek love in western history. There are sources that cover pederasty in ancient Greece, the development of homosexuality in Victorian England etc etc, and they all use the term differently. If the term could be readily integrated across different contexts, don't you think we would now have a source book appropriate for this article, titled like "The concept of Greek love in western history"? Such an overview is a task even beyond world-class scholars but that kind of integration is what a group of anonymous WP editors is attempting. I hope you'll reconsider your vote. McZeus (talk) 00:39, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

We don't vote at AFD. You seem to be arguing that we have to source titles, and I do not agree with that position. My only concern here is that there be sufficient reliable sources to establish notability of the article's subject, and I think it is clear that there are. --Nuujinn (talk) 09:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Please read the AfD nomination - the term's notability is not in question here: Greek love is more than one term and some uses are notable. So which Greek love is Greek love about? McZeus (talk) 12:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

All of them. My suggestion is that we make this into a summary style article, pare down the text to closely follow the sources, and point readers other articles that cover similar articles as appropriate. I do not agree with the notion that because the term has had different meanings at different time, including them in a single article is OR. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:07, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Two or three source books on the subject have been cited in this discussion. I hope that when this proposal goes away, they will be read through for use in the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:20, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The collection of essays takes a period-by-period approach that's virtually an outline for the article. The books that deal mainly with one period begin with some kind of overview of the subject. It's a straightforward matter of reading and summarizing, but challenging because the sources are operating at a high level of literary sophistication. Introductions are always the hardest thing in any form of writing, and are usually the last thing finished. Cynwolfe (talk) 04:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

The collection of essays you cite here is titled Same sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West. It is not about 'Greek love' per se and the term appears only 6 times in the main body of the whole book, once as a synonym for other terms (page 399). The rest of the time it is mentioned in the reference sections in various book titles. You can't judge a book by its cover and titles are usually market driven. You don't have a book that collates the various uses of 'Greek love'. There are books that develop its use in the context of classical Greece - controversial books mostly - but to use those as a source is to rewrite Pederasty in ancient Greece (the end section of which desperately needs sources like that). There are books about the development of homoerotic culture and language in modern Europe, but there are articles that already deal with that subject and they too desperately need the material that you are putting into this hyperbolically conflated article. Until you write the lede, nobody who comes to this article as an editor will know what to put into it or take out. It will be anybody's guess and it will be on for young and old in yet another series of silly edit wars. McZeus (talk) 12:56, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Reply. Sorry, but you really aren't getting this. An article does not have to be based on a single book; we tag articles and sections that attempt to corral a topic in order to express a single POV by means of a single source. I don't know how many times I can say this: Pederasty in ancient Greece is about a social custom in ancient Greece; the article "Greek love" is (or properly done will be) about the reception of an idea (see reception theory) and its aesthetic and intellectual use in later periods, for which the term "Greek love" is a modern shorthand. The exact phrase "Greek love" doesn't have to be used in every paragraph that discusses how Shelley and Byron used a Greek "fantasy," as we might think of it, to conceive of homoeroticism at a time when it was taboo. "Greek love" is a sexual costume. It is precisely the point that "Greek love" doesn't mean pederasty, nor anal sex, nor homosexual relations, but may mean all these things and more depending on the time and place. Among literati and academics, it is an aspect of the classical tradition, which was understood in various ways over the centuries — and this is true of thousands of other humanities articles that provide an overview of topics that are much more complex and technical than this (cosmology, ontology, free will … I could go on and on). An individual editor's inability to comprehend and write about a topic is not grounds for deletion, or else I could go delete all the articles pertaining to quantum physics. Cynwolfe (talk) 14:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Again you have said it all: "It is precisely the point that "Greek love" doesn't mean pederasty, nor anal sex, nor homosexual relations, but may mean all these things and more depending on the time and place." Greek love is context-specific and depends on time and place. No publication has collated its use in all these different times and places. I can find books on religion that collate religious practices and beliefs in various contexts; I can find books on Quantum physics that explain and collate quantum processes across many contexts; I can find books on ontology that explain and collate the works of different philosophers on the theme of ontology. I can't find a book that explains and collates the different uses of Greek love across all these times and places. Neither can you or you would have cited it. But soon the world will have an article here at WP that does what the world's best scholars haven't yet attempted. In fact, it will be a set of content forks gathered in an inscrutable way by WP's own self-appointed literati and academics. Who are you kidding? McZeus (talk) 00:11, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

McZeus, can you point to the policy that requires that the entirety of an article be sourced to a single book or article? 00:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I provided a list of sources above, as well as an outline. Cynwolfe (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. Sometimes we need articles that are mainly about words rather than concepts. Greek love is one of those, and so is gender. In the field of sex-related issues it's often the case that the words used to describe concepts are as controversial as the concepts themselves, and subject to re-definitions for various reasons. That does not make the topic unencyclopedic or "original research". Tijfo098 (talk) 13:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

I am wondering how much of McZeus's objection to an article on the topic conceived on the lines argued by "keep"-voters has to do with (A) the existence of any article on that subject vs. (B) naming that subject "Greek love." I do think it's a legitimate question whether the WP:RS support tying it together in this way under that name. If they don't, I'd really rather see us move the article to a descriptive title, even if it's a tad awkward & cumbersome. Note that a differently named article could certainly have a subsection entitled "'Greek love'" (in quotes, the term). (Everything I say here applies, of course, even if McZ answers me and says, no, "A" by itself is a huge stumbling block. I understand this is not the "proper place" for a move discussion, but it seems a good opportunity to ask whether the WP:SYN, if there is any, lies more in the title than the content.) Wareh (talk) 18:05, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Greek love is the proper title. See the source I mention below why it's okay. Tijfo098 (talk) 18:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep: all I have seen in the article and through this discussion urge me towards keeping this article, which is about a scholarly issue that is referenced quite well. -- role^player 14:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep - notable subject, as per User:Colonel Warden. Off2riorob (talk) 14:19, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• The article could certainly use better sources; the second part of ISBN 1405122919 (pp. 89-164) covers the topic across time, which certainly removes the suspicion that this type of coverage is original research. This review of that book has a synopsis. Tijfo098 (talk) 17:13, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
• Keep as a major cultural topic or aspect. The term is as far as I an tell the standard one, now and throughout history. I do not think the assemblage of material to be OR. The references support the article as it stands. That the practices described by the term cover a wide range of actual actions is clear in the article--most people using it in past centuries deliberately avoided detailed writing on this subject, and many have have been confused about what meaning was actually intended. All articles necessarily assemble material, and it always requires a certain amount of judgment about what to assemble and how to assemble it. Some degree of research or synthesis is therefore inevitable unless re simply resort to plagiarism--and even so, it would be necessary to decide what to copy. DGG ( talk ) 18:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Where have you been hiding, Tijfo098? That's an excellent source and it seems to anchor the article in a workable definition as an idealized view of pederasty. It provides a source for the kind of sweeping generalizations this article needs if it is to cover multiple contexts. Those generalizations are necessary also to avoid content forks since much of the material mentioned so far is better developed in other articles. However, I think Wareh's suggestion is very important. By all means keep 'Greek love' in the title but it should have a qualifier, such as Greek love: idealized pederasty. A qualifier would help distinguish it from other uses, such as the popular slang term which denotes pederasty in general and also anal sex. It would also assure readers and remind editors that the article has a clearly defined topic and is not just a grab-bag of issues vaguely related to homosexuality and pederasty. McZeus (talk) 22:17, 16 November 2010 (UTC) Another scruple - perhaps other authors have other interpretations of Greek love. In that case, the article could still be an unworkable mess of content forks. I guess we are going to find out only from the experiment itself. If the article continues to fail, I will nominate it for deletion again. A qualifier, as suggested by Wareh, would be another test of the article's viability. I am wondering if there is any agreement about the wording of such a qualifier. I suspect there will be no consensus about that. McZeus (talk) 23:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

If "Greek love" were just a code word for "pederasty" it wouldn't merit an independent article, and I would advocate turning it into a redirect. But that isn't what Tijfo098's excellent new source says. The author is a senior lecturer in classics and ancient history, School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney. He states that in this portion of his book, which indeed is titled "Greek Love," he wants

to examine how the script for modern homosexuality was put together and the place of Greece in this narrative. Greece provided a set of metaphors in which homosexual desire could be captured and crystallized. Greek myth, art, philosophy, drama, and poetry have all played a part in the formation of modern homosexual identities. Discussing homosexuality in Greek terms is a practice that unites both critics and advocates of homosexual love. … So ingrained is this association that looking to Greece for illumination on homosexual matters is instinctive.

So concludes the introduction. This is so far from "Greek love = idealized pederasty" that surely you must've read a different book. The next section is titled "What is 'Greek Love'?" and it introduces a figure needed and so far missing from the discussion here, Oscar Wilde, whose tragedy is surely well known and whose sensitivity for Greek antiquity in general and its eroticism in particular should not be reduced to "oh, another pederast." If there is a consensus not to delete, further discussion belongs elsewhere. As for your threat to bring the article up for deletion again if it doesn't please you, I'm unclear as to why an article should be held hostage by a single editor. Cynwolfe (talk) 23:33, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

The author quotes Wilde at his trial and he observes that "Here in the crucible of the Wilde trial we see one of the most complete definitions of Greek love." The definition is idealized love between an older and a younger man, which I interpret as code for pederasty. Hence Greek love: idealized pederasty. That's a definition that can be worked across several historic and social contexts using the cited book as the main source. If there are other definitions of GL within multiple contexts then the WP article has major problems still in terms of locating and addressing the real issues (if there are any). The real issue might be a debate about how the term GL is applied by different scholars and we don't have a source for that, as far as I can tell. McZeus (talk) 00:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Your interpretation is not really relevant here. Nor is how the article might be formed in the future. The question here is whether sufficient sources might exist to establish notability of the subject. McZeus, you have praised a source found by Tijfo098, yet you have not struck your delete !vote. I have to ask why not? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:06, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Read my reply to Cynwolfe. I thought the book was a source we could build on with confidence but it appears I might have been over-optimistic, as indicated by Cynwolfe's reservations. McZeus (talk) 00:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

My reservations are directed at your interpretation; even if Blansford gave such a constrained definition (and he did not), it would be synthesis to take the definition offered by one source and apply it "across several historic and social contexts." Cynwolfe (talk) 01:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

He nominated Wilde's speech as "one of the most complete definitions of Greek love" and that's a constrained definition. What other definitions are there? If there is no clear definition then the article remains a set of content forks under a vaguely worded term that can be taken to mean almost anything. If the term really is vague then there may be a scholarly debate about its meaning and relevance and the article could then focus on that debate, provided the debate is interpreted for us in a scholarly publication. As for my future nomination of this article - The first AfD nomination was defeated resoundingly. This Afd came closer to succeeding. I think that shows that people are beginning to think more about the real issues. It's a bit like a classroom - some people pick up the issues straight away and others still don't catch on even after two or three repetitions. But we are getting there. There won't be a third nomination if the article has a real sense of purpose supported by good academic sources. I've enjoyed the debate and hopefully next time I won't get spat upon. We'll find out! McZeus (talk) 02:03, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

In my mind this article is no more a fork than Biblical studies is a fork of the Bible. Sure, you could merge the two articles, but the central issue in this one, as Cynwolfe pointed out, is the reception. Mind you, "idealized pederasty" is not the only way in which ancient Greek texts and other art on homoeroticism were interpreted. Blanshard finds at least two examples of idealization in a different direction. According to him platonic love was the product of a dispute between Renaissance philosophers on interpreting the Plato's writings, particularity Phaedrus (dialogue). "In 1458, two of the West’s leading intellectuals found themselves in dispute over precisely the definition, content, and morality of ‘Greek love’ ..." In more recent times, Blanshard argues that Benjamin Jowett, who was an advocate for the study of Plato in British schools, tried a different interpretation in the attempt to minimize the sexual morality conflict: "Plato here becomes a healthy heterosexual trapped in a homosexual age." Surely, some of the reception was for homosexual or pederastic activism purposes, particularly that of John Addington Symonds. Blanshard writes: "Classical authors are mined for pederastic content, and the speech effectively constructs a queer canon of pederastic allusions." Although this is more controversial (see the review of Blanshard's book) Blanshard argues that Greek love was abandoned as central issue in queer cannon only with the writings of Michel Foucault. Still Blanshard gives an interesting example how the interpretation of Greek love became an argument in the 1993 Colorado trials, which led to Romer v. Evans. I think that the issue of reception is sufficiently notable by itself for a separate article. We even have an article for Platonic love, which according to several scholars is a sub-issue of this, although just as with Greek love, the term was re-defined over time. Humanities are fuzzy like that; it's not always possible to create clear-cut definitions and coalesce all synonyms, like you can do in math. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. And a very important point in general about humanities articles. I hope Tijfo098 can spare some time to work on the Greek love article, and I hope any editor who's opposed to the article in principle will give it a month or two to shape up before beating up on those who are trying to read through the scholarship and improve it on the fly. When does the AfD discussion run its course? Cynwolfe (talk) 16:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, per Peter Cohen and Cynwolfe. Paul August ☎ 18:16, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

A term like 'Greek love' can operate as a euphemism and the article has been a haven for lifestyle advocates of various kinds since it was set up. If 'Greek love' is clearly defined and well sourced there won't be a problem. I don't agree that humanities are fuzzy. A poem can be fuzzy because it is allusive but scholars don't write allusive critiques of it. Encyclopaedia articles shouldn't be fuzzy either. If you set out to write the article with a high tolerance of fuzziness you will certainly get a fuzzy article. I believe that is what we'll end up with if the article is kept. As for reception - in humanities subjects, that's typically the theme of the end section. Greek love would be perfect as the end section for Pederasty in ancient Greece or even of Pederasty. In Greek love, on the other hand, GL is going to be presented as a term whose reception changes it so much we can't even be clear about what it means. It's not really about the term at all but about different people in different times and places. I don't see how this can work as a coherent article. It could work as summary of Blanshard's book but then it should be called Blanshard's intepretation of 'Greek love'.McZeus (talk) 00:00, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

McZeus, you've agreed that Notability is not an issue, and that above seems more appropriate for the article's talk page. I'll ask again, can you point to policy that supports your position? --Nuujinn (talk) 00:04, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't want to make this personal, but I think we've finally arrived at the source of your anxiety about the article, McZeus. From our earlier interactions at Pederasty in ancient Greece and Symposium, I know you are very concerned about the issue of lifestyle advocacy. You seemed satisfied that we were able to exorcize that in the Greek pederasty article. I assure you that I will do my best to make sure that Greek love is based on reputable scholarship, and maintains an appropriately scholarly tone. Cynwolfe (talk) 01:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Two things to say. First, Nuujinn raised a good point and it deserves an answer. A football match doesn't end just because one side has a winning lead. There are still lessons to be learned and the game goes on while the two sides learn more about each other, in preparation for the next round. The game ends when time is up and it is almost up now. Of course this is not a game but it helps maintain civility if we think of it in those terms. Second, Cynwolfe, I think it's good policy to edit articles just as if we won't be here tomorrow - because someday we won't be. The article is fundamentally flawed and I believe everyone would gain if we closed it down and diverted resources to other articles. GL is a notable term in the context of Pederasty in ancient Greece - e.g. it is in my Oxford Classical Dictionary as a subsection of Homosexuality. But the meaning mutates in other contexts and then it is no longer notable. GL would make a good magazine article but it is not the right material for an encyclopaedia. McZeus (talk) 04:15, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Ho ho, you've obviously never tried to shop a magazine article if you think that. The way to write articles as if we won't be here tomorrow is to create an armature: a clear structure for the article, and sufficient sourcing so that intrusions of unscholarly material are evident. You can't ban topics because they might be vandalized or have inappropriate material added to them: there'd be no articles. I can't tell you how many times "sucks dicks" or some such has been reverted from Julius Caesar. WP is always in danger of collapse for just that reason, and it will if one day there are too few guards to patrol the borders of legitimacy. This is no grounds for deletion, and isn't even a content dispute. It's simply a concern, a legitimate concern, that could apply to thousands of articles that deal with potentially sensational, politicized or criminal topics. Blansford's book is brand-new, and shows that "Greek love" as a concept within the reception of the classical tradition continues to this minute to receive serious scholarly attention. "Greek love" is a topic within the broader subject of "Homosexuality"; so what? "Homosexuality" is too broad to cover thoroughly in a single article, and presents a survey that directs readers to more specialized topics. I'm sorry, but it's hard not to feel that you just don't want the subject covered. Any attempt to define "Greek love" as mere pederasty is demeaning to the closeted writers and artists of past eras who explored their homoeroticism through imagining a time when they might have been free to love someone of the same sex — they weren't all just nasty pedophiles in an intellectual disguise. (Not to mention that we don't ban an article on Lolita because it might read as advocacy for pedophilia.) Cynwolfe (talk) 13:03, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

McZeus, you completely ignored my question. You obviously do not like this article, but personal preferences aren't relevant. Numerous reliable sources support the topic's notability beyond the narrow scope you are advocating, and in any case, I think a discussion of scope is not really appropriate for AFD-AFD is not cleanup. For the third time, can you point to policy that supports your position that the article should be deleted, given that you have conceded notability? --Nuujinn (talk) 13:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

It's all very well to go round and round with McZeus about this, but the result of this AFD seems clear, perhaps efforts might be more usefully spent elsewhere? Paul August ☎ 13:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.