 | Below are answers to frequently asked questions about the corresponding page Satanic panic. They address concerns, questions, and misconceptions which have repeatedly arisen on the talk page. Please feel free to change this material in light of new discussion. |
Many of these questions have been raised in the scientific and popular literature, and are summarized here for ease of reference.
The main points of this FAQ can be summarized as:
- Satanic ritual abuse is considered a moral panic by most scholars in psychology and sociology
- Only a tiny minority of scholars, publishing in low-impact journals or vanity press support the idea that there was any reality to the SRA moral panic.
- Wikipedia:Neutral point of view requires that minority views not be given undue emphasis.
- This is the result of long-standing consensus, with many, many discussions covering the same topics and arguments repeatedly without any new information being added or progress being made.
- The extensive, repeated abuse editing privileges of sockpuppets by an editor banned for POV-pushing means there is little tolerance for new editors bringing up these same points.
Q1: Why doesn't this article discuss the reality of the SRA allegations?
A1: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that attempts to represent topics in a serious, scholarly manner as illustrated by the use of reliable sources to place due weight on the mainstream scholarly opinion. There are many sources that demonstrate the current opinion of most scholars within the field is that SRA is a prime example of a historical moral panic. Sources explicitly supporting this point include [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29].
Q2: What about the many sources that claim the SRA represented credible evidence of actual child abuse?
A2: Most of the sources that claimed SRA was real were published during the lead-up to, and peak of the moral panic. Even at the peak, the publications were generally in low-impact journals and other fringe publications. As the moral panic peaked, the opinions of the sources began to turn negative. The most recent, most reliable sources are explicit in labelling and discussing this phenomenon a historical example of a moral panic. Recent sources that discuss SRA as a "real" phenomenon are published in low-quality, low-impact publications, often from self-published or pay-to-publish sources, which carry very little weight and are considered an example and demonstration of the low notability of this opinion.
Q3: Doesn't the seriousness of the allegations merit a serious discussion?
A3: Wikipedia is not a soapbox to advocate for a particular point of view. All editors believe that child abuse is a serious crime that deserves serious attention; however many editors and scholars believe that the combination of the bizarreness of the accusations and complete lack of forensic proof means there was never any merit to the satanic and bizarre aspects of the accusations. The willingness to take testimonials of adults and children at face value is seriously believed to have resulted in numerous wrongful convictions.
Past discussions
For further information, see the numerous past discussions on these topics in the archives of Talk:Satanic ritual abuse and related pages:
- Discussion of old sources February, 2010
- ResearchEditor's topic ban, Arbitration review and repeated, lengthy discussions August, 2008; September, 2008