Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Authors with mental illness


 * 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   delete.  MBisanz  talk 19:38, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Authors with mental illness

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

Various concerns here. Firstly, this list is overly broad. Something like 40% of people have "mental illness" at some point. As the normal definition includes depression, and post-natal along with high level psychosis. Secondly, the people in category X who have Y, formula is limitless. Should we have "Authors who have diabetes" and "Bankers who have mental illness" - where do we stop. Thirdly, there is a BLP issue here. Whilst a certain author may have spoken openly of some mental illness, a list without qualification means that someone who admitted Post-natal depression for 3 months is put indistinguishably with someone who was psychotic. Fourthly, the list has few citations. Whilst only people with articles are included it is impossible to check whether the citation is on the article, and, even if it once was, it may well have been removed from the article as erronious and no one would notice the list. That's why we normally use categories for these things, so that the "listing" is on the same page as the citation, and if the citation is missing, we are more likely to spot it.

All said, delete. Scott Mac (Doc) 13:14, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Don't care. This was created from listification of a category that was deleted.  I don't care what you do with it.  --Kbdank71 13:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I wasn't clear. I closed a CFD discussion that ended in "listify".  If you view the deleted edits of Category:Authors with mental illness, you'll see that I merely copied and pasted the category text into the list.  The category (and said text) was created by User:P L Logan, not me.  --Kbdank71 14:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment to article author - we don't write articles to "make a point" or "acknowledge" things, or to advocate for recognition. ("This list is to acknowledge the wealth of literature that has come from those who struggled with mental illness. Earlier figures were often reluctant to discuss or seek treatment for mental illness due to social stigma about the condition, or due to ignorance of diagnosis or treatments").
 * That said, this for me comes under "non encyclopedic cross categorization", or in the nominator's terms "people in group X with attribute Y". Hence delete. FT2 (Talk 13:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * (Afterthought on nomination point about indiscriminate nature of list: I don't mind the large size of the potential list, but the page title is "with mental illness" - present tense. "Authors who have at some time had mental illness" is more accurate. But that makes even more clear that this is likely to be too open-ended to be genuinely appropriate and encyclopedic. FT2 (Talk 17:53, 27 March 2009 (UTC))


 * Delete per well-presented nomination. 67.79.157.50 (talk) 14:03, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete WP:LISTCRUFT + WP:BLP issues with such a list. —Capricorn42Talk 14:30, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't give a damn What is this?Jamiebijania (talk) 14:34, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Your point being...? AlexTiefling (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete Potential BLP issues are worrying, as is the width of the list (which leads back to the BLP issues). Nor, as others has said, is it encyclopedic. Dougweller (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep The individual authors here are pretty well known for this, and there should be no difficulty in actually documenting it with whatever source was used to document the main articles on them. If there is any that cant be, they should be removed. As the authors are limited to those considered notable for Wikipedia  purposes, it's not indiscriminate. DGG (talk) 16:51, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Except, about 40% of our bio subjects will have had some form of mental illness, and in a celebrity confession culture, 10's of thousands will have admitted it. It is indiscriminate to collect people with one publicised bout of depression with paranoid schizophrenics.--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as a POV and BLP minefield, as well as being too broad to maintain, bordering on the indiscriminate. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete per BLP concerns. There's a good advert going around with Stephen Fry in that shows how prevalent mental illness is: "one in three have dandruff. One in four have a mental illness. I have both." Sceptre (talk) 18:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No opinion either way, but just want to challenge couple of flawed notions in the nomination. We don't, and shouldn't normally use categories for these things, because the "listing" is not on the same page as the citation, as anyone who has ever visited a category would know.  Second, a list is a far better way to handle this stuff, and it better meets our BLP obligations, since with a list the addition of a name has to be cited right next to that person's name to qualify the addition.  Now yes, there may well be issues of someone with post-natal depression being on a list with someone who is psychotic, but that's not an inherent flaw in lists, that's an inherent flaw in the Wiki process.  It's no different to the Siegenthaler episode.  Now maybe this is a bad list to have, but lets not start barking up the wrong tree as to why this is a bad list to have. Unless we follow the path to the logical conclusion and delete all BLP's because they are magnets for edits which breach WP:BLP. Bath water should be emptied, yes, but because we need to clean the bath, not because the doorbell rang. Hiding T 20:01, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it is a matter of realistic quality control. People will make bad edits, but if they wrongly add someone to a category, anyone later viewing the article can see the categorisation and examine whether there is referenced text to justify it. Plus the people who know about that person are more likely to read the bio and spot any falsehood. With an unreferenced list, the reader of the can't easily see whether the inclusion is appropriate, and the reader is less likely to be informed about any particular person listed. Lists thus have a lower ease of quality control, and more BLP dangers.--Scott Mac (Doc) 22:41, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is a matter of quality control, but not for the reasons you list. I doubt that many people look at what categories are on a page, and I doubt many people check why all the articles in a given category are there.  Anecdotally I can prove that through a wide number of cfd's. An entry needs very strong cites to be on a list, otherwise it should be removed. Unreferenced lists are just unreferenced articles.  This isn't a problem because it is a list, and trying to make it a problem because it is a list is emptying the bathwater because the doorbell rang. Lists have the same quality control as articles, because lists are articles.  Like I say, I am none too bothered with what is decided here, just that you decide it for the right reasons.  Misapprehensions need to be challenged because of what they can lead to.  I have no bother with you saying this is a bad list to have, but saying that's because lists are bad is akin to saying this is a bad article to have, because articles are bad to have.  It doesn't work.  The logical outcome of the argument is that Wikipedia is a bad thing to exist.  Certainly that's an argument put forwards on a wide number of venues, but I would certainly hope it isn't one subscribed to by Wikipedians. Mind, it makes you think... Hiding T 09:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Something not being in a category is never a BLP issue. We damage people (generally) by wrongful inclusion not by omission. And, frankly, if wikipedia can't get a quality control system to protect living people that is realistic and generates low errors, then no, it should not exist.--Scott Mac (Doc) 21:01, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as the list has BLP issues. Tavix (talk) 20:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment To be clear, this topic is perfectly notable/relevant per WP:SALAT (which is a Wiki policy and not an essay like WP:LISTCRUFT quoted above). However since this list cites barely any reliable sources, it should be deleted. I would, of course, prefer to keep this article with reliable sources added. Anti  venin  05:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Delete. The broad nature of the list and BLP issues are not of great concern IMHO (assuming there are proper sources), but the topic simply more suited to the use of a category.  Markovich292  05:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Although the category was deleted because the consensus was that it was more suited to a list. It'd be nice if we could have these conversations happen on the same page. Hiding T 18:15, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete This has immense potential as a vehicle of BLP violations, particularly libel. Valley2 city ‽ 06:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions.  —J.Mundo (talk) 20:26, 31 March 2009 (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.