Talk:Ricky Rodriguez/Archive 2

Edit war over source

@Joefromrandb, Robert Gentel, and Thorwald: Well, I'm not accusing anyone of editwarring, personally- but bring the discussion here, rather than in edit-summaries, which is less than useful. Generally. The principle here is that of "extreme claims require excellent sources", and I do not think that the one currently suggested applies. I propose that we look at this in two parts- what we want to (or think the article should) say, and wjat we have to back that up. Personally, the bookscans so far provided appear to be a primary source. This is insufficient for any article making rather radical claims; until it is corroborated with a reliable secondary source, I recommend ommiting this content. — fortunavelut luna 04:38, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

The scans of the book in question are, of course, a primary source by definition, but the linked citation (at xfamily.org) cites both an additional external archival effort at exfamily.org as well as a court case that refer to these claims in detail. These have been established facts (as per courts of law) for decades and is not even disputed by the accused parties. Of course if those are not sufficient anyone is free to Google as this ("story of davidito" in quotes) has been mentioned in hundreds of newspapers. Of course, these events all predates the internet by a decade so you won't find many of them all but you can still find outlets you know reporting these same facts in seconds if you need additional sources. Here is NBC, for e.g.: "In the book are photographs and stories of a 3- and 4-year-old boy having sex with adults and with other children his age, photos so graphic we've decided we shouldn't show them to you." And there lies the rub, this is child pornography, it's illegal to have or to show you. This is about as documented a case of child pornography as has existed (after all, not many cases of child abuse are covered worldwide by thousands of outlets), but no the explicit evidence about the contents of the book isn't going to be found floating around except on specific sites that are willing to incur the potential legal liability to maintain this very obscure record (remember, this book was self-censored by the group and less than a dozen uncensored copies exist) and this citation is one of them. The xfamily.org citation is to the primary authority on this group (as measured by published citations) and the facts asserted can all be verified with a less shallow perusal of it, including external resources. Citations can always be better but this more than meets muster and is not at all a controversial claim. You will not, for example, find anywhere, anyone, including the people who are accused of producing the book, denying a single one of these claims. One of the nannies in the book that appeared with him in sexualized/nude photographs is the person he murdered and these facts are critical to the very reason this person is notorious (his murder/suicide) as per the SF Chronicle. Anyway, there are two more citations anyone can include if they feel the current ones are not good enough. Robert Gentel (talk) 04:23, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that these facts have been removed yet again. Ironically, especially given the claimed motivations, a citation remains to ABC that substantiates the removed claims. "As a child, Rodriguez was idolized as a prophet in the sexual revolution, and was the subject of a manual the group published on child-rearing, 'The Story of Davidito.' Many of the pages were full of sexual photos and suggestive captions, mostly written by Berg. One read: "God created boys and girls able to have children by about the age of 12 years of age. My God! Now he's going to advocate childhood sex. Some of the pictures show Rodriguez with Angela Smith, the woman he killed." These repeated reverts and the edit wars don't seem to be done in good faith or with even a superficial perusal of the citations being dismissed. Robert Gentel (talk) 04:36, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

The paragraph in question states, "The 762-page book also included at least a dozen photographs depicting the child engaged in sexual activity with his governesses, particularly Sara Kelley (also known as Sara Davidito or Prisca Kelley). The COG later ordered this book to be heavily sanitized and, eventually, destroyed completely. In the late 1990s, it was reprinted in heavily sanitized form". Since this paragraph is claiming that this book ("Story of Davidito") contains photographs depicting Ricky Rodriguez engaged in "sexual activity" with his governesses and that wiki provides the scans of said photographs, how can you claim this not to be a reliable source? Also, of course it is a primary source, as these are the very images described in the paragraph in question. These are not "radical claims". Ricky Rodriguez's himself made the same claims about his youth (and was one of the reasons for his murder-suicide). The book is beyond a fact and so are the images/photographs they contain. This is more than enough needed to pass Wikipedia's requirements for inclusion. PS: I am definitely not engaged in an edit war here, as I only reverted once (the initial revert). We should commit to no more reverts until we can reach a consensus here first. --Thorwald (talk) 04:57, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Thorwald, I'm about as involved as you and, having no particular dog in the race, I agree with your 'PS' in all senses. — fortunavelut luna 05:01, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

PPS: This very book was not only referred to by Lord Justice Ward (a judge in the UK in his judgement on a case involving the group in question), he also quoted extended passages from this book referencing the abuse described in the paragraph in dispute (in fact, the judge's quotes are far more explicit that the paragraph in dispute). See: Judgement of Lord Justice Ward (page 41). --Thorwald (talk) 05:04, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

None of this stuff is really remotely acceptable. Surely we can do better than this. And don't forget there are living people still involved--I removed one from the article earlier tonight. And Thorwald, it seems to me that you may have a dog in this race, considering your 252 edits to Family International and your 55 edits to David Berg. I don't know what kind of dog or which way it runs, but I do know that you need to give some serious consideration to Wikipedia's policies on reliable secondary sourcing. Drmies (talk) 03:54, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

This is the kind of subject about which you will simply not find any informed but uninvolved parties. It's obscure enough that EVERYONE who has any information about this has a dog in the fight, so to speak. From ex members who want to prevent the sweeping of the abuse under the carpet (me for example) to those who still support the cult who naturally prefer that the sexual abuse charges, convictions etc are not prominent. Nobody neutral on the question of whether this was a "good" or "bad" cult cares enough to know about this subject. Any of you neutral guys here can take 5 minutes perusing the sources I've linked (from NBC, ABC etc) that meet wikipedia muster and that would be that. But unless you care about keeping the record of these abuses online or the right to have them forgotten you likely aren't going to bother. And there we stand. I've answered each of the qualms with the sources and provided 3 additional ones in this talk page. That is all ignored to continue to pick nits and defend the removal of this information on an increasingly tenuous basis. Robert Gentel (talk) 23:03, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Please do specify what is unacceptable about the following sources that all corroborate the removed claims: ABC: "As a child, Rodriguez was idolized as a prophet in the sexual revolution, and was the subject of a manual the group published on child-rearing, 'The Story of Davidito.' Many of the pages were full of sexual photos and suggestive captions, mostly written by Berg. Some of the pictures show Rodriguez with Angela Smith, the woman he killed", NBC: "Far from hiding the details of Davidito's upbringing, the group actually produced a book about it written by one of his early nannies and distributed to church members. It's called 'The Story of Davidito.' It's a daily diary of the little boy's accomplishments, full of snapshots and tips on parenting. Tips on parenting that might seem to an outsider not only bizarre, but even criminal.In the book are photographs and stories of a 3- and 4-year-old boy having sex with adults and with other children his age, photos so graphic we've decided we shouldn't show them to you.", SF Chronicle: "Some of that sexual fondling was described in a Children of God publication, 'The Story of Davidito,' which was given to adults and children as an activity to emulate. One scene describes sexual activity between the 20-month-old Rodriguez and another one of his nannies. Other pages show pictures of "Davidito" lying in bed with naked teenage girls.". All these reputable sources corroborate the claims that were removed. Robert Gentel (talk) 23:13, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Removal of link to video

User @Drmies: removed a link to the video Ricky Rodriguez made. No reason given except "wut", which is not helpful. I restored the link. --Thorwald (talk) 02:07, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

• Thorwald, kindly give a reason to restore an inline URL to a video of questionable authenticity on a wiki. Please see WP:RS. "Wut" because all these things should be obvious. Even as an external link this is questionable if only because it seems to be plugging this XFamily wiki. But while we're on the topic, in that same revert you restore another XFamily document, without giving any reason whatsoever, where I did give a reason for removal (and one reason certainly is that there's no secondary source for this at all: you may think that any primary material is automatically worthy of inclusion, but you'd be wrong). So, I think the very first thing you need to do is argue for the acceptability of this XFamily thing, since I don't see how they are in any way a reliable source per WP:RS. Drmies (talk) 03:26, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

xfamily.org is the authority on this group that nearly every journalist that has covered the group has used since its inception. Upon what basis do you claim it is not a reliable source? It cites external sources for its claims but for things like the video you should understand that the Ricky Rodriguez's widow personally gave the video to the group to publish and due to its content and the relative obscure nature of the group you will not find it hosted elsewhere (a decade ago it had a few additional publishers). Every mainstream reference to this video used this page to get the screen caps etc for publishing, this site is the original source for publishing this video and it was subsequently reported on widely. If the video being hosted there is problematic then moving the file somewhere that is more acceptable for wikipedia is the solution. The only reason this individual is newsworthy outside the group is this video and the subsequent murder/suicide it purports to explain. Robert Gentel (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

It's a Wiki. And if "the only reason etc", then he's possibly not notable by our standards. I'm going to spend some more time on this today; we may end up at RSN if we can't settle it here. Drmies (talk) 12:03, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't personally care if this article is on wikipedia or not, but if it is I would like the context to not be whitewashed. I'm fine with it being removed entirely but having an article about him at all and not mentioning the documented sexual abuse that led to his murder (of one of the documented participants)/suicide doesn't make any kind of sense. It would be better off for wikipedia to recuse itself of arbitrating this information entirely than to whitewash it into something meaningless. Robert Gentel (talk) 22:56, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I believe this is covered by the first of Antandrus' perspicacious observations. Joefromrandb (talk) 23:28, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Robert Gentel. Since Drmies completely whitewashed the article with his latest removals (without any consensus from any of us in this discussion), why don't we just completely remove this entire article? I am not being facetious here. The article as it stands now is meaningless as to why Ricky Rodriguez was "notable" in the first place. You might as well just write, "there was some dude to murdered some lady then committed suicide". The only reason he is "notable" is because he was the son of a notorious cult leader, that he was sexually abused as a child (and Robert provided plenty of links to reliable sources backing up that claim and I also provided a link to Lord Justice Ward's judgement, probably the most reliable source anyone could find), and that he later murdered one of his abusers before taking his own life. It is the combination of all of these that make him notable (again, there are plenty of reliable sources to back all of this up). PS: Drmies, please stop removing content without discussing it here first and we reach a consensus. --Thorwald (talk) 01:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Doc Mies isn't "whitewashing" anything. He's editing the article in compliance with policy. No "consensus" on this page to violate site-wide policies is going to be honored, so you're going to need to actually produce these sources, rather than simply insinuating their ubiquity. Joefromrandb (talk) 02:12, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Joefromrandb I have now done so 4 times in this discussion in the last 48 hours, you're going to need to actually read the replies to your demands before you can go about insisting they have not been met. Robert Gentel (talk) 03:45, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Joe. Thorwald, consensus is one thing, but AGF is not a death pact. I don't know what y'all are trying to achieve with this article whose sourcing is just atrocious. Are y'all ganging up against this religious cult? That's fine, power to you, but don't do it here. I will do you one better: start finding real sources, or you might see this up at AfD. Drmies (talk) 02:14, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I have provided said sources 3 times on this very page in the last 48 hours. You are removing the content while deliberately ignoring the substantiation you are demanding. Here are 3 additional sources yet again that do not violate any wikipedia policy: Please do specify what is unacceptable about the following sources that all corroborate the removed claims: ABC: "As a child, Rodriguez was idolized as a prophet in the sexual revolution, and was the subject of a manual the group published on child-rearing, 'The Story of Davidito.' Many of the pages were full of sexual photos and suggestive captions, mostly written by Berg. Some of the pictures show Rodriguez with Angela Smith, the woman he killed", NBC: "Far from hiding the details of Davidito's upbringing, the group actually produced a book about it written by one of his early nannies and distributed to church members. It's called 'The Story of Davidito.' It's a daily diary of the little boy's accomplishments, full of snapshots and tips on parenting. Tips on parenting that might seem to an outsider not only bizarre, but even criminal.In the book are photographs and stories of a 3- and 4-year-old boy having sex with adults and with other children his age, photos so graphic we've decided we shouldn't show them to you.", SF Chronicle: "Some of that sexual fondling was described in a Children of God publication, 'The Story of Davidito,' which was given to adults and children as an activity to emulate. One scene describes sexual activity between the 20-month-old Rodriguez and another one of his nannies. Other pages show pictures of "Davidito" lying in bed with naked teenage girls.". All these reputable sources corroborate the claims that were removed. Robert Gentel (talk) 03:42, 18 August 2017 (UTC)