Talk:Prostitution in South Korea

Should Japanese sex tourists in South Korea section be removed from this article?―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 02:01, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

I've reverted this removal of the Japanese sex tourists in South Korea' section. The edit summary of the removing edit said, "Child sex tourism: cited source (http://www.rjkoehler.com) in the source (http://www.ecpat.net/) is a blog". I don't believe this reasoning is in line with WP:RS. This is the supporting source which was cited, and the RS question should be about the reliability of the source cited source, and not extend citation-by-citation to questioning the reliability of sources from which the source cited drew information.

Incidentally, the objected-to source is titled "THE MARMOT'S HOLE : Korea... in Blog Format" is a blog; see http://www.rjkoehler.com/about/. The reference to an entry on it within the source cited seems to be to a December 15, 2009 article at http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/12/15/korea-still-prostitution-paradise-japanese-internet/#more-15133 titled Korea Still ‘Prostitution Paradise': Japanese Internet (cited at note 16 in the source cited by the WP article). That article seems to have relied on info from this web page (rough translation here). That web page looks like it belongs to the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, one of four major national South Korean television and radio networks and the oldest among all commercial broadcasting networks in South Korea. All off that is just incidental, however. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:12, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

It is unquestionably obvious that a description in a reliable source citing an unreliable blog is unreliable. I posted WP:RSN#Is a description in a reliable source citing an unreliable blog reliable?.

Yes, the blog points to a Munhwa.com. I am not sure the site is reliable or not, but the article is clearly based on the internet blog or advertisement. Anyway, I am not going to discuss the reliability of the article itself. The point is that the article says nothing about the child sex. How can the article back the description In terms of child sex tourism, South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through prostitution.?―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 05:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

This has now been discussed on RSN at WP:RSN#Is a description in a reliable source citing an unreliable blog reliable?. The discussion there just concerns whether the source cited qualifies as an RS for WP's purposes. The conclusion that citing a blog as an information source does not disqualify that cited source as an RS seems pretty unambiguous.

The point introduced above that the article (the article cited as a supporting source, not the WP article) says nothing about the child sex is a new one. Looking back at the currently cited source (), I see that it is an Executive Summary of a larger report. The download link given there for the larger report is dead, but a copy of that report is archived here. That larger report says on page 11, "South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through child prostitution." The source cited in that larger report as note 35 in support of that assertion is the same source cited by the Executive Summary as note 14.

I've updated the article to cite the full report rather than the Executive Summary. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:03, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

You didn't respond to my concern; "the article says nothing about the child sex". You changed the source, but the same invalid citation still remains in the source. Unless you find a valid source supporting the claim, the section should be removed per WP:V.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 21:32, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I see that in this edit you just once again removed the Japanese sex tourists in South Korea section. I have reverted that removal. Please consider this a reminder that edit warring can lead to your being blocked from editing.

The discussion on RSN addresses the question of whether or not the citation is invalid -- if is not invalid. The full report cited by the updated citation says, "South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through child prostitution." By my reading, that does speak to the topic of child sex.

I am not pushing a POV here, and I am not wedded to the wording in the section of the article which you have now removed twice, As far as I can see, the present content of that section, including the supporting citation, are in line with WP policies. I recognize that reliable sources may exist which publish viewpoints which are at variance with the source currently cited in the section. WP:DUE says, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources," in line with that, the way to handle that situation is to desccribe the varying POVs and to cite sources supporting the descriptions. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:09, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I see that here you have once again removed this section, saying "invalid citation in the source". This despite the pretty unambiguous result to the contrary in this RSN discussion which you initiated a few days ago about that preecise point.

This is clearly edit warring behavior. You are an experienced editor, having been around for more than five years and having made more than 5,000 edits. I simply do not understand why you are behaving in this manner. I find it difficult to accept that I have arrived at a point where I am considering blocking you, but I have arrived at that point. Edit warring like this is simply unacceptable.

I am going to once again revert your removal of this section. If you remove it again, I will block you. If you persist after expiration of the block, I will reblock you with escalating block durations. If you feel that the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources content guideline is faulty, the proper way to address that is through discussion at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources, not by edit warring to enforce some contrary guideline of your own.

If you feel that I am somehow wrongheadedly misperceiving this, please discuss that with me. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:55, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Please note that edit warring cannot be made by a single editor. You are a person involved in the edit warring.

You made this discussion circular. Please re-read above discussion thoroughly. I am talking about the citation (Munhwa Ilbo) in the source (ECPAT report). The citation says nothing about the child prostitution at all. It is crystal clear that the description South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through prostitution. supported by the invalid citation is invalid. An editor advised in RSN "...because you are right, we don't see the word "child" in either Munhwa Ilbo or rjkoehler, and it does seem to be a rather important point. I did a quick search for korean child sex tourism, and found a lot about Korean men visiting other countries for it, and nothing about Japanese men visiting Korea for it. It would be a shame if we would be perpetuating a clerical error in the ECPAT report." If the claim is prominent phenomenon, you can easily find other reliable sources supporting the claim without relying on the invalid source. Please feel free to re-add the claim if you find other reliable source other than the defective ECPAT report.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 04:20, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I see your repeated removals of that section as having been vandalism -- illegitimate blanking and my repeatedly having restored the removed content as reversion of vandalism. After your initial Bold removal of the section and my Revert of that removal, this should have gone to the Discussion phase of WP:BRD, without ping-pong reverts. The BRD method of reaching consensus is not mandatory, but it beats the heck out of ping-pong reverts.

You explained your initial reason for removal, saying that the supporting cite was invalid because the cited source used information from a blog. I explained my reason for reverting your removal, saying that the reason you gave for removal was invalid and explaining why. You disagreed, and took it to RSN, where it was explained that I was right and you were wrong. Despite that, you still contend that the section should be removed for that invalid reason. I don't see what there is to discuss further about the cite -- it is a valid cite of what is considered to be a reliable source under Wikipedia's RS content guideline. You apparently think that WP's content guideline should be different on this point than it is. Feel free to take that to WT:RS.

Regarding the word child, see here above.

I'm not an expert on the topic of this article. I'm not about to argue with ECPAT as you apparently feel qualified to do -- I don't think I ever heard of ECPAT prior to having gotten drawn into this through noticing your improper blanking of content (I think I saw the edit while in a WP:Huggle section and, seeing what looked like a dodgy explanation, put huggle aside to take a closer look at the edit). The content is supported by what WP regards as a reliable source -- that is good enough for me; I don't need to go looking for additional supporting sources. If there are sources of similar reliability out there which disagree with ECPAT on this, by all means add that information to the article and cite those sources. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:27, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you miss the whole point. May I ask a simple question? Please show me the location where the child prostitution is mentioned in the blog or Munhwa Ilbo. It says "(A man) had sex with a 22-year-old girl", however there is no word "child" in both articles.

Please see also WP:RSN#Can a description with a citation in a source be used in Wikipedia, if the description is not supported by the citation?―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 08:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't know. If you think that ECPAT may have gotten that wrong, take that up with ECPAT. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not good enough for me. Funnily enough, if they hadn't cited their sources, it probably would have been, but they use an article to support their child prostitution point that talks about above-age prostitution. The best I could find was this:

"Japanese men continue to be a significant source of demand for child sex tourism in Southeast Asia." That link also includes a section on Korea. No mention of Japanese men there, although a bit of synthesis would indicate it's likely (it says "more than 95 percent of commercial sexual exploitation of children in South Korea is arranged over the Internet." and that Munhwa article talks about Japanese men's use of the internet to secure prostitutes.

Anyway, we're still missing a cite that (reliably) says what the article does. I'd suggest pointing out that Korea is a popular sex tourism destination for Japanese men, using that USDoS report to support the statement that Japanese men are a significant source of demand for child sex in South East Asia, and leave it at that. Bromley86 (talk) 08:46, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

See discussion archives for RS for clarification of the point I have been trying to make here. Here's a couple of snippets from Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources/Archive 43#Chain of authority:

• Reliable sources aren't required to cite their sources. It doesn't make sense to accept a source with zero citations at face value, and then say that if exactly the same source were printed with a list of its sources, we'd start picking it apart based on whether we happen to approve of its sources
• If Y is a normally reliable publication, and makes a statement with its own voice, then the statement is normally reliable. The fact that there is a footnote, or equivalent, mentioning that the information came from X does not change this.

This is probably touched upon in other discussions there. If you want to discuss that, though, please discuss it at WT:RS, not here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 09:00, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Happy to ask there, but before I do I thought I'd see if your position changes when you read the sentence following the the two in your 2nd quote, "But if Y gives the information from X in a manner suggesting the information is doubtful or not fully vetted, then the information might not be reliable." That's the situation we have here, where Y(ECPAT) says "child" when X(Munhwa) does not (nor does it imply it). Bromley86 (talk) 14:05, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

No. If WP cites Y, and Y is an RS for the topic, it matters what Y says. If Y says he got the information from X but Y does not give the information from X in a manner suggesting the information is doubtful or not fully vetted, then we accept that information as being just as reliable as other information which comes from Y. If a WP editor looks at the information from X and disagrees with with what Y said about it, that WP editor is not an RS and information from him about his disagreement with Y should not be considered. If some RS (call him Z) other than Y looks at the information from X and says that Y got it wrong or gives information (from X or from anywhere else, whether he (Z) identifies his sources or not) which conflicts with what Y said, that brings WP:DUE into play. Again, though, please discuss this at WT:RS, not here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Whatever the past content of the article, at the moment it says

Japanese sex tourists in South Korea

As of 2012^[update], South Korean child prostitutes are patronized by Japanese male sex tourists since South Korea was still a significant place for Japanese clients engaging in child sex tourism.^[1]

The reference is to a report by ECPAT which says: "South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through child prostitution." That sentence is referenced in turn to a blog, "Koehler Robert, Korea Still ‘Prostitution Paradise’: Japanese Internet, 15 December 2009, Accessed on 9 February 2012 from: http://www.rjkoehler. com/2009/12/15/korea-still-prostitutionparadise-japanese-internet/".

I agree with Wtmitchell; given that we regard ECPAT as a reliable source (and that the claim made is not extraordinary nor obviously controversial), we here can simply use the reference to ECPAT without further comment. The whole point about RS is that they are in a position to evaluate primary/unReliable sources, and if we were to get rid of RS that rely on non-RS, we wouldn't have much of an encyclopedia, and in fact not much knowledge of the world at all. The current version is entirely acceptable. I hope this helps. Richard Keatinge (talk) 10:53, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

The argument, as I understand it, has morphed from one of whether ECPAT is normally a reliable source to one of whether they've made an error in this case. Where we know that a normally reliable source is not reliable (for example, where it says the sky is green but cites a source that clearly says the sky is blue), then it is not to be used. This is what GRuban said over on the RSN, no? 13:22, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

I should say that I believe the statement currently in the WP article is correct (if poorly written); I just have not been able to find a reliable source that actually says it. Bromley86 (talk) 13:25, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

If an RS says that the sky is green, it doesn't matter whether he cites a source or not. If he does cite a source, opinions from WP editors about whether he interpreted his source correctly or about whether or not he might have relied on information from other sources but neglected to cite them or about what color the WP editors themselves think the sky color described as green by the RS actually was or about whether he is generally reliable but might be unreliable about this particular point because perhaps he is color blind or because perhaps he meant to type blue but typed green by mistake simply do not matter. Again, this is better discussed at WT:RS than here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:38, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comment - The ECPAT's conclusion "In terms of child sex tourism, South Korea remains a major destination for travelling Japanese men who exploit children through prostitution" is not just based on the source in note 16. They provided the citation but it does not imply that they would just base on that source alone to reach their conclusion. STSC (talk) 06:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

• It shouldn't be removed, just needs to be merged with other subsection. Noteswork (talk) 15:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)